


What the World Doesn't know

by Princesa188



Series: Me with you [1]
Category: Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Baekhyun - Freeform, Byun Baekhyun - Freeform, EXO - Freeform, F/M, Lay - Freeform, P101, Produce101, Zhang yixing - Freeform, exo Lay, pd101, wannaone - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-04-08 08:29:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14101434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princesa188/pseuds/Princesa188
Summary: You give him a look before Baekhyun drags you off. You thought he would’ve said something to Baek, but he didn’t. Instead he shoved his hands in his pockets, and stares at the ground smiling.





	1. Enter The National Center

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You give him a look before Baekhyun drags you off. You thought he would’ve said something to Baek, but he didn’t. Instead he shoved his hands in his pockets, and stares at the ground smiling.

The victory sign flashes your screen. You stretch your back and arms out and look over at Bang who was streaming right now. You get up, walking over to him.

            “Oppa, I think I’m coming for your spot as SKT’s starter ADC,” you joke.

“Ya!” he yells at you. You see the stream channel blowing up, probably from the outplay that happened about a minute ago, and you give him a smile. Wolf walks towards you as well, having just played on the same team as you.

“She should’ve been our main ADC,” Wolf teases.

“I think we’ve would’ve made a great duo,” you add on.

You and wolf high five. It hadn’t been long since you joined SKT. This was your first year, previously having one season in NA LCS for League of Legends. Your previous team was put together from your former online friends that you’ve been playing with for a while. You all were high enough ELO to play professionally, all being in High Platinum and up. You decided, with the help of your sponsors, to play one year professionally on LCS level. No one could’ve told you the outcome.

In fact, you guys were brand new, after a rough start at the beginning of the season, you slowly began to pick up moment. You placed 3rd in the season, not bad for newbies. Made it through to MSI, where you took TSM’s place.

Everyone began calling you guys the dark horse of league of legends. Your team’s popularity blew up. A makeshift team, of 6 friends, making their way through MSI. You guys dominated MSI, taking on LCK teams, playing on their level, and after long grueling games, eventually coming out on top.

More people began tuning into your stream, especially since you were the first female representative to set foot on any international stage for league. When World’s came around, you guys were first seeded in NA, easily gaining a ticket. Although people had high hopes, you came in second, having been beaten by Samsung who barely won against SKT. You had a great season with your teammates.

After that, you thought of retiring, you all did. But offers came in from other teams, asking you to play for them. You, being multilingual (you secretly thank your parents for those grueling language classes), got offers even abroad.

You took your chances, picking SKT to play for as their backup ADC.

Now the rest, is where you are now, barely passing Rift Rivals with SKT .You and Bang rotating in and out whenever needed. You had a more aggressive play style, and Bang’s was more calculating.

“You two leave me alone, my support and I weren’t communicating at all,” he tries to explain. Wolf and you look at one another, and just nod, walking away from Bang who was already getting upset. “Oi, (y/n) you coming tonight to get drinks?”

“No,” you say as you check your phone. “Not today, I have plans.”

 **Bacon** **:** 5 mins away better be done with your game

“Why?” Peanut says. You look across your computer to see him pouting. You were the same age as him than him, but you two were practically inseparable since you arrived, mostly because he saw how horrible you were at jungling, and then you two proceeded to make jokes about it.

“I made a promise that I would go support someone tonight. Sorry~” you sang out before sitting back down on your computer. You weren’t streaming today, and log out of your account before grabbing your bag and phone. “I’ll be leaving first.”

“Bye,” you heard the mismatched pitches and timing of your oppa’s saying bye, and you laugh bowing at them before leaving.

You head out into the street, realizing it was quite late. You throw on your baseball cap, and facemask, looking around. You see his familiar car turn the corner, and stop in front of you. You open the door and slide right in.

“Yo,” Baekhyun says.

“Yo,” you reply back. It still amazes you as to how on earth you were friends with Baekhyun from Exo. It was right after your win at MSI, your team was invited to the Ellen Show, it was there when she asked you what would be your one wish. You jokingly said you have often mentioned on your stream that you want to play with Baekhyun from Exo. Literally, two second later, he walks through the door, asking if you want to play a game.

You add each other on the Korean server, and occasionally played together. The more you played, the more you became friends. When he heard you were coming to Korea, he made sure you had everything you needed. It was weird being friends with Baekhyun, at times, you wondered why. Soon you got use to your friendship.

“Been a while since I saw you, you put on weight,” he jokes while poking your cheek. You pout and move his hand away.

“No I haven’t. I weigh the same. Stop bullying me,” you reply. “What are you recording today?”

“M Countdown. Oh yeah,” he says while we stop at a light. He reaches in the back of his car, and pulls out a CD of their newest album. “Here you go, the members signed it.”

“Perfect, I can sell it on Ebay later,” you joke.

“Ya! Don’t say that,” he yells.

“A joke, it was a joke,” you laugh as you pull into SM parking lot. You quickly get out, following him into the staff van. You say hello to the staff, and they greet you back. They give you a pass, and you hop in the van which they were in.

“(Y/n) been a while!” Chanyeol grins. You nod, saying hello to him.

“I know, you’ve been so busy and oppa doesn’t text me back till days later,” you say. “He probably forgets about me.”

“Don’t say that! I don’t!” Baekhyun begs. You and Chanyeol both laugh, and finally Sehun climbs aboard the van, closing the door behind him.

“Oh, (Y/n)-ah.”

“Ah, Sehun-oppa,” you reply. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“It’s not like we’re in the middle of a promotion.”

“No, that would be absurd.”

“Absolutely.”

“Why are you two like this?” Baekhyun asks you. You exchange looks, and shrug. Hell, how would you know?

 

~At M Countdown!~

 

You flip through a magazine, as the boys were finishing their make-up and getting their mics checked. You had a camera in your lap, taking pictures here and there. Although you weren’t allowed to show anyone the photos, you still took some for fun. If they came out good, sometimes they would post it on their SNS or on SMTOWN Global.

“We’re going to go record now, be good,” Suho says while resting a hand on your head.

“Will do,” you reply.

“She’s so cold today,” Suho cries to Baekhyun.

“She’s mad because she lost at cup pong,” Baekhyun sayd loudly enough for you to hear. He wasn’t lying.

“You made Chanyeol-oppa play for you! That’s cheating!” you say. He smiles and waves goodbye to you, and you roll your eyes. The waiting room got quiet, and you decided now would be a good time to use the restroom. You get up, plugging in your phone to charge, and heading on out. You stroll down the hall, make a couple of turns, and then realize something.

You got lost.

You’ve only ever been here one other time. But you swore you saw the bathroom on your way to the waiting room. Were you wrong?

Someone clears their throat behind you, and you turn around. A man in his mid-thirties stares you down. You follow his line of sight, and notices it stops at the camera you still had on around your neck. You realize it doesn’t look good, so you decide to just head back.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asks.

“Sorry, I’ll be going now,” you apologize. You try walking past him, but he catches your arm.

“The camera,” he replies. You give him a confused look. “I need to see your camera.”

“What?” You ask first in English before asking again in Korean. You thought you heard him wrong.

“There’s a limit to how far we can let fans go,” he says as he tries to reach for it. You turn your body, his hand avoiding it.

“I’m not a fan, I came with Exo,” you say. He scoffs, clearly not believing you.

“Don’t lie, I know you just snuck in to take pictures of the boys. I’m getting security to call the police on you. This is an evasion of privacy.”

“Hyungnim,” you hear a voice say from behind you. You turn around, and the first thing you notice was how broad his shoulders were. His blonde hair was swept to the side, and styled well. He had a tad bit of sweat on his forehead. A baby blue button up, with half of it tucked in, and gray jeans. “It’s true. I saw her come in together.”

“We still need security to come here. We shouldn’t let a ‘guest’ wonder,” he says. I eyes him, and open my mouth to begin spewing curse words with whatever language comes to mind first. However, the blonde man removes the manager’s hand from my arm.

“I’ll take her back. We shouldn’t let something small become a big thing,” he explains. Before his manager can say anything, he takes my wrist and walks away, turning the corner.

“Why did you help?” You ask him once you guys were in the clear. You nod for him to let go of your wrist, and he promptly does so.

“It seems like you were in a trouble, and you looked like you were about to start freaking out,” he adds on. You stare at him. You swore you’ve seen him somewhere. But you couldn’t remember where. It was killing you. You shrug, scratching behind your ear. You finally remember it, you saw him from a show, Produce 101.

“This may seem like a stupid question. But what was your name again?” you ask him. He lets out a chuckle, as if he was pleasantly surprised to hear that question.

“Kang Daniel,” he introduces himself. He gives you a puppy smile, and you give a smile back. “I just recently debut with Wannaone.”

“I feel like I should know, but I don’t watch a lot of TV shows here. Mostly Running Man and Ask us Anything if I do watch anything, but congratulations on your debut,” you earnestly say.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what’s your name?” he asks.

“Oh, right. It’s-“

“Ya! Where have you been?” you hear Baekhyun shout from down the hallway. You both turn your head, and you notice he has changed outfits for his second stage.

“Oppa,” you say. “Uh. Well you see…”

“Annyeonghaseyo,” Daniel says while respectfully bowing.

“Annyeong,” Baekhyun quickly says back. “Sorry, I have to take her back. Hopefully she didn’t cause too much trouble.”

“No, just the opposite,” Daniel replies. You give him a look before Baekhyun drags you off. You thought he would’ve said something to Baek, but he didn’t. Instead he shoved his hands in his pockets, and stares at the ground smiling.

“Adios~” you sang out before you turn the corner. You hear Baekhyun scold you, telling you that you should’ve had your phone on you. But you ignore him, your mind was filled with the guy you just met. Kang Daniel from Wannaone. You wanted to know what he was smiling about, and still wanted to know why he helped you out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yay i finally got around to posting a story on here. Hopefully it turns out good and you guys like it. Please feel free to leave me your comments or opinions! Would mean a lot to me <3.


	2. We Meet Again

A couple days have passed since you met Kang Daniel. You were streaming as per usual, nothing too outstanding. You were ranking, duoing with Peanut, your favorite person out of all of SKT. Even though you were supposed to call them by their names, you couldn’t help it. Sometimes their username would come out instead.

A donation pops up, and you hear the auto-toned voice come on.

“You never told me your name, I had to track you down,” the donation voice says after following the Kaching sound from EXO-CBX song.  You quickly look at the username, and see Blondeknight written. You instantly knew who it was.

“Oh~ I see your flirting with your viewers,” Sky says while walking by.

“Oppa, don’t say that,” you complain. You see the stream chat light up with the pogchamp and you roll your eyes. Today you weren’t delayed too badly, just about 10 seconds. Mostly cause you don’t care if people stream snipe you, and then again it was also on the Korean server. There was too much going on for anyone to stream snipe you.

“Is flash up?” you hear Wangho, aka Peanut, ask.

“Nope,” you reply.

“Go in, go in, go in,” he says. You proceed with his request, and stun the opponent with a Syndra combo. He follows up with using Lee Sin’s ult to kick her back, away from her turret. The two of you kill her, you gaining the kill, and letting him tax and freeze your lane as you decide to back, having enough gold for your next item.

You didn’t know how he got your name, you were sure he didn’t hear it. Did he ask around? He could’ve asked an Exo member, or maybe one his members knew? Or maybe he asked a Girl’s Generation member? You were familiar with them, but not too close to them like Exo. You didn’t understand how he managed to track you down.

The game ends, being your defeat due to the enemy team’s better scaling. You stretch your arms, and look at the time. You say goodbye to your viewers and turn off your stream. SKT all decided to go out tonight, again, for some drinks. Since you didn’t go last night, you thought you should go tonight. You couldn’t help but remember the username. You type it in, adding him on Twitch. You weren’t expecting an instant response or anything, but about 10 seconds later a notification pops up, and he added you back.

 _Hey_ he wrote. _How have you been?_

 _How did you find me?_ you type out. Before deleting it all and watching the cursor blink on your screen. _Hi, I’ve been good._

_I bet you’re wondering how I found you._

‘He must be psychic, has to be,’ you thought to yourself. You see the other boys either finishing up their game or already done with their games, and packing up for the night.

 _A little bit_ you type back.

 _It wasn’t hard. All I had to do was ask around and someone said you were a streamer for SKT. You’re really good,_ he says.

“Noona,” Sungu, AKA Blank, says behind you. You curse under your breath as he startles you. He laughs a bit at your reaction, before saying “you ready?”

“Y-yes,” you say while getting up. You take a shot and send him you Kakao info. _I’m leaving but message me on that if you want. I still have some questions for you._

 _Will do,_ he responds. You smile, but then shake your head. You didn’t want to get involved in another scandal with a celebrity again. When you first got to Korea, you hung out with Baekhyun once, and Dispatch took a photo of you two and said you were seeing one another. While they weren’t wrong, you were seeing each other and went on a “date” it was more of a friend date. Correction, a tourist date. He was showing you around Seoul, not his bedroom.

Baekhyun and SM quickly and easily took care of the issue while SKT released a statement as well saying you were not interested in dating and were just good friends. Since then, some K Exo-L’s approve of you, while the majority hate you and a lot of international fans didn’t mind at all. Instead they shipped you two so hard, you were sent fanfics and you would share them with Baekhyun if you thought they were funny enough.

Since then, you tried your best to avoid paparazzi or hanging out with other idols. Which was unfortunate because you’ve met a lot of interesting people since then. You’ve befriended many idols since then at backstage in converts and the occasional parties you were asked to attend to.

“(Y/n) you coming?” you hear Coach Kkoma say. You grab your backpack, and sling it around your shoulder before turning the computer off and heading out of the clubhouse room. You would worry about things later, right not you would just focus on things that were happening now, and as of right now that involved going out for drinks.

 

~At a KBBQ Place~

 

You didn’t know what time it was, or exactly how many drinks you had. But you were probably not the most drunk there. Kkoma had left you guys, due to his good health habits, and retired for the night. Sanghyeok, Faker, left with the duo bot lane. So all that was left was Sky, Blank, Untara, Huni, and Peanut. You were sitting in between Huni and Peanut, the only two friends your age, watching the world go up in flames. Sky and Blank were talking about some nonsense you couldn’t understand because your brain was half-functioning (you blame that on the fact that it was because soju was cheap). Blank was half falling asleep right across from you, but you don’t blame him, he was going even with Wolf and Bang for a while.

Meanwhile, the three of you were talking about some other stuff. You were wanting to move apartments, and Huni was saying where he currently was living was good. Peanut was telling you to just stay there till your lease ends, which you told him a million times you were. You took off your jacket, easily getting hot while you drink. You see Peanut and Huni exchange looks, and you stare at them.

“(Y/n)ssi trying to seduce someone?” Peanut asks. You scoff, not believing his remark. You look down, and realize what they were talking about. You had on skinny jeans today, with a gray crop top. The back of the knitted tank has a lace-up, criss-cross back tied at the bottom. When you were streaming, it wasn’t noticeable because you had a jacket on, but now that you were out, it was completely noticeable. You see Huni wiggle his eyebrows, and you stand up from the your seat.

“Not even close. I’ll be back, I’m going to the restroom,” you say. You grab your purse, and begin to fish out your phone as you begin walking away.

“Be safe,” Peanut says. You throw your hand up, as if saying you understood.

You pass a couple tables of large parties, and finally pull your phone out realizing you had a couple of unread messages on Kakao.

 **Bacon:** No you can’t borrow my car for a road trip? Where did you get this idea? Are you drinking again?

You frown, and respond to Baekhyun: ‘:( it was just an idea. And so what if I’m drinking? This and that have nothing to do with one another. I just want to see the sea ;^;. You’re ruining my dreams.’

 **Sheep:** Those kids will be the death of me. But how have you been? I’ll be leaving Korea sometime soon so let’s meet up, I’ll take you out to go get some food.

You smile, stupid as it sounds. You had this dumb one-sided crush on Yixing. You knew it was never going to happen, but how could you not smile at this? He was your bias before you got to know Exo, and now, well, now he is your friend. You type back ‘just tell me when and where and I’ll be there~.’

 **Leadernim:** No you can’t borrow my car. You don’t even have a license. If you did, I would consider it… maybe ^.^

You began to wonder, how many people did you ask to borrow their car? And why did you think going on a road trip about an hour ago was a great idea? Before you reply, someone taps you shoulder and you turn around, fist ready to swing. You see the goofy blonde that helped you out earlier this week hiding under a black hat. Today he was wearing a black v-crew shirt under a red plaid shirt. It was very different from his stage outfit, but you had to hand it to him. He still looked good.

“Annyeong,” he says.

“Annyeonghaseyo,” you formally say. You looks quickly at your fist, and you slowly lower it. You stare at the ground, and he puts a hand on your head.

“You don’t have to be so formal around me,” he says. You push his hand away from your hair, and nod.

“Sorry, but at the same time I also request you don’t act like we’re close as well. People might see, and get the wrong idea,” you explain. Even if this place was semi-private, there are always people looking. He understands what you mean and nods. “How did you know where I was? I mean, What brings you here? And how did you find out who I was?”

“I asked Minhyun-hyung, he says you two actually met each other before. He’s the one who told me you were a streamer, and Sungwoon-hyung actually watches your streams occasionally. We’re here because it’s between the dorm and our last schedule, so we stopped to eat. I also just saw you walked by, and thought I was seeing things. So I decided to see if it was you. Any other questions?” he asks you.

“No,” you simply say.

“So then why are you here? And why did you ask me to add you?” he asks you. You stare at him, realizing he is going to ask you some questions like how you asked him.

“I’m here with the rest of SKT. I didn’t go out for drinks the other night, since I went to a recording with EXO, so here I am. It’s our favorite place to come for drinks and food. Secondly, I still had questions for you. Like why did you help me? You don’t even know me,” you say.

“Hey!” you here someone shout behind you. You turn your head to where your chin was touching your shoulder and see a table behind you. You roll your eyes and ignore them. “Don’t ignore me! Leave your boyfriend, and let me show you a good time,” he continues.

You see Daniel tense up, and you scoff at the other guy’s remark. You see his friends are hyping him up. You examine him quickly, late twenties to early thirties. He has a ring on his finger, meaning he’s married. You continue to ignore him. Nothing good will come out of it if you give him attention. You were still a bit buzzed, but he was more on the drunk side.

“Just ignore him,” you whisper. “I come here often and it isn’t any different from the states. If you don’t give him attention, he’ll stop.”

Daniel shrugs off his plaid shirt. He places a hand on your mid back, and pulls you in closer to him. You can feel his gaze on the guy behind you, and his breath barely reaching your cheek. His arms wrap his button up around your shoulders easily wrapping around your body frame.

“Hey! Petty lady~” he continues to call out. “Don’t let him cover you up! Show off what you have! Take it off if you want.”

“I’ll be back,” he says. Before you can stop him, he walks over to the man. He drops down to his ear, and whispers something to him. You couldn’t hear it, due to the rest of the noise in the restaurant and how far you approximately were from their table. Daniel gave him a smile before patting his bicep area and walking away. The older gentleman just nods silently before returning to the conversation he was having with his friends.

“What did you say?” you ask him as he grabs you wrist while walking past you.

“Nothing that I shouldn’t say if that’s what you’re thinking,” he says. You notice you’re walking towards the entrance and you give him a confused look. He gives you a small smile before pulling out his phone. It rings a couple times before someone picks up, “Oh, Jisung-hyung, tell the rest of the members I went to go meet up with a friend nearby. I’ll meet you guys back at the dorm. Also there’s some SKT member’s there. Tell them I saw one of their players head home… okay… thanks Hyung I owe you one.”

“Where are we going?” you ask. Not only did you have no idea what he was doing or planning, you had no idea where you were going.

“Where you’re known best,” he replies. You didn’t have the energy to go against his own. It was late, probably around midnight, if not past that. You sigh and let him drag you to whatever nonsense he has come up with. Hopefully, it would be enough to explain why you disappeared with a wannaone member. Or maybe… not so much.

 


	3. Curiosity Killed the Cat

You enter a 24 hour internet café, Daniel now walking beside you instead of leading you. He walks up to the desk and asks for two computers next to one another. The young man nods to his request, never lifting his eyes off the manga he is reading and passes him two cards he can use to access the computer.

“When do I pay?” he asks you.

“Depends on the store. Here, you get on using the card. It has a code. You type that in and it keeps track of your time. When you’re done, you go and pay,” you explain. You type in the code, and log in as a guest, not bothering to make an account. You look over at Daniel who was logging in. You finally ask, “why are we here?”

“Because you’re good at league,” he replies.

“No, I mean, what did you tell the guys? Why did you drag me out of the restaurant?” you emphasize. “If you don’t tell me, you do know I can always leave. I can call someone on my phone and get them to pick me up.”

“I told them I was trying to make up with my girlfriend. They were surprisingly understanding when I said I messed up bigtime,” he answers. You frown and open the League of Legends game and log in. “By the way, how do you play this game?”

“Are... you’re joking right? You want to play and you don’t know how?” He nods his head as you sigh. You get up from your seat, and hover over his computer. You quickly log into one of your smurf accounts, which was unranked, on the Korean server. You sit back down in your seat, and create a party, inviting him to it.

“Okay, we are on two of my smurfs. I use these when I’m not really streaming. So, I’ll try walking you through playing a game while we play,” you say as he joins. “Alright… do you at least now the basic of mobas?”

“More or less,” he replies.

“Well this won’t be so bad then,” you say.

 

~A few hours later~

 

You couldn’t help but try keeping your giggles to yourself. He wasn’t doing horrible bad, but watching him play was funny to you. His decision making was questionable, as well as his overall skill, but it was fun playing with him. You look at the time, and nudge him with your elbow. You watch as your nexus explodes, not even caring whether you won or lost. It felt good to have some fun while you play.

“Should we go?” you ask. “I feel bad for keeping you out later than I should have.”

“Actually, we would barely be heading home right now. Our activities would be finishing right now, but thankfully we didn’t have anything scheduled for today,” he says. You give him an absurd look.

“You’d barely be getting home right now?” you ask. He nods. “Well what time do you get up? 10?”

“Uh. Usually by 6 or 7, just depends,” he responds. You both get up and head to the young man who was now reading another manga. You hand him both your cards and he tallies it up. It totals up to being about 7,000 ₩. You hand him your card, and you look behind you to see Daniel chugging the last of his drink before throwing it away. You both head out, Daniel behind you, and stretch your arms out.

“So how did you meet Exo?” he asks.

“Ah. I met them through Baekhyun. One day, we were invited to the Ellen show because of how insane League blew up. I always said I want to play with Baekhyun of Exo and Heechul of Super Junior. Ellen heard about it and asked about it. I answered, and he walked in. I think since then, we just naturally became friends. If he was on, I’d invite him and vise verse. That was back when I was in the states. Now that I’m here, we actually grew a lot closer, and he occasionally takes me to music shows or parties. But nothing too crazy where we get into another scandal,” you explain.

“Another one?” he prompts the question.

“Yeah, dispatch released some photos of us going to some touristy locations. Even though it wasn’t like that, they expressed it that way. However, things were taken of quickly and so a lot of people realize we are friends. But if they choose to now like me or whatever that up to them,” you continue. “What about you? How does it feel to finish 1st out of 101 people?”

“Well… you know sometimes it doesn’t feel real. I had no hopes of finishing within top 11. I was aiming for around 30th place. You know? Just something to get my name out there. I’m honestly really thankful for everyone who supported me,” he says. You kick a rock as you turn the corner, now on the main street so you can call a taxi. “By the way, I only know your username by which you play with, SKT Angel. Is that what I’m supposed to call you? Angel?”

You give him a serious look.

“Yes. That’s my actual name,” you reply. He gets really quiet before you laugh again. “No, it’s just my user name, my old team gave me the name when we were trying to come up with ID’s. But you can call me Angel or (y/n)-ssi. It doesn’t matter to me. Sometimes SKT will call me Cheonsa or Tenshi when we’re streaming because they think it’s funny, but mostly it’s (y/n) when we’re not streaming.”

“That makes sense. I thought I was hearing wrong when they kept saying that,” he says. Daniel finally manages to catch a taxi. The driver turns on his hazards. Daniel waves at him and opens the door for you. “I’ll catch the next one. Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you sure? It is pretty late,” you say as you stand at the car door. “I don’t live far from here, so you can just hop in and he can take you where you need to go. Is that alright ahjussi?” you ask the driver.

“Ye, ye. I can drop the young lady off first and take you where you need to go young man,” he says. You give him and look, and Daniel rubs the back of his neck. It did take you two a while to catch a taxi, and you want to tell him that. Before you try persuading him, he just nods.

“I think that would save us all a bit of time,” he replies. You slide into the backseat, and he gets in behind you, shutting the door.

“Where should I be driving to?” the driver asks.

“It’s XXX apartments on XXX street,” you say. The driver nods and turns off his hazards and begins to drive.

“That is close,” he says.

“You better not stalk me,” you warn. “I know many powerful people. Got that? Mostly just one, and that Jung kook-oppa because I occasionally go workout with Sehun. And we see him at the gym. But besides that… there really is no one else.”

Daniel laughs, showing you his puppy smile which he was known for. Which won the hearts of millions of girls. Which got him to be number one in the survival show. Which got him to where he was now. You glance out the window, pouting a bit, and he stops laughing. Apologizing for his sudden outburst.

“You’re very… different if that how to put it,” he says.

“What do you mean about that?” you question.

“It’s as if you treat everyone on the same level. Like no one is above you, and no one is below you in terms as being a person. You don’t really flaunt your friends or your money. I don’t know. I feel like a lot of people in your position would be affected by it very differently than how you handle it,” he explains.

“Isn’t that just who I am as a person?” you ask.

“And who are you exactly?” he replies back.

You were stumped for a second. You thought you knew who you were by what other people say about you. You heard you were kind and funny. You also heard you were pretty by some, and others say you’re responsible. Your friends would say you were a complete mess, and not a morning person. Some others would say you’re kind of an airhead. But not once did you truly know exactly what it means to be you.

“We’re here,” the driver says.

“Right…” you mumble. You give Daniel a side glance before grabbing your bag and getting out of the cab. You motion for him to lower down the window and he does so. You hand Daniel some₩ to cover your part of the drive. “You ask a lot of interesting questions,” you admit. “But if you want to know who I am, then I have to know who you are. Doesn’t it work both way?”

“I believe you are absolutely right,” he answers. “So, shall we make a deal?”

“What’s that?” you ask. You’re now completely intrigued in this deal.

“For every one secret I tell you about myself, you tell me one thing back and vice versa. Whoever runs out first, has to do one favor for the winner,” he explains. The driver clears his throat and you both turn to him. “Think about it and text me what you think. Alright ahjussi, we can get going now.”

You didn’t even have time to respond as he left in the cab. You turn to head inside before you realize you’re still wearing his plaid shirt. You turn around. His cab was long gone. You sigh, heading inside.

You were interested, that was for sure, but how far were you willing to go? You walk up to your apartment door, typing in the code. Once inside you head to your room and switch to some yoga shorts and a sweatshirt. You finally grab your phone, after much deliberation.

 **You:** I’m in

After a little while, you receive a text back.

 **Daniel:** I thought you might be :)

 You were completely in shock at his boldness, but one thing was for sure, you were completely hooked.


	4. Terms and Conditions

You wake up the next morning, feeling unusually calm. You look around and spot the plaid shirt laying on the corner of your bed. ‘So that really did happen last night,’ you think. You thought maybe it was a weird dream, or better yet, a precognitive dream so you could avoid it from happening. Unfortunately, neither was true. You groan, and roll over to scream into your pillow.

Deciding, enough was enough, you throw yourself out of bed, and head over to the kitchen area to make food. You open your fridge, pulling out some milk and grab the box of cereal above your fridge. You throw it on the counter, not realizing that you weren’t alone in your apartment.

“I was wondering what you were going to eat for breakfast.” The voice startles you that you jump a little bit, and spill milk all over the counter. You turn around slowly seeing Lay sitting on your couch with a smile on his face. “Good morning,” he says in English.

“YA!” you shout. You slam the milk down on the counter, clearly annoyed. “Why didn’t you say anything when you got here? Why are you even in my apartment? How did you even get in?”

“You still have the same code and I wanted to surprise you,” he laughs. He gets up from the couch and heads over to where you are. He gets a rag out of one of the drawers and hands it to you. “You walked right past me. _I’m_ surprised you didn’t see me.”

“Me too,” you say. Once you finish cleaning up the mess, you give him a small smile. “I apologize for yelling at you, and good morning.”

“It’s all good. I did scare you. Anyways, why is your fridge so sad? When was the last time you brought groceries?” he asks.

“Why is it that when one of you guys come over the first thing you do is check my fridge?” you ask him as you put the milk up before grabbing your bowl of cereal and sit down on one of the stools at the countertop.

“We just want to make sure you’re eating. Your face looks a little round, so I’m not too worried,” he teases. You stare at him. Baekhyun definitely told him to tell you that, they always like messing with you. Xiumin says it’s because they don’t have younger sisters of their own that they treat you this way. You don’t mind, but sometimes you really wish you could hit them.

“Get out,” you say. He gives you a look, and you just take another bite of your cereal. “So what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you so early in the morning?”

“I’m off for half the day, so I was going to see if you want to come with me to the studio and tell me what you think about my new routine, and then I can buy you groceries on the way home,” he offers.

“Sure, I don’t mind. I don’t have to be at the clubhouse till 3 and it’s barely 7 right now. Let me get dressed first and wash my face,” you say while finishing off your cereal. “By the way… am I dressing to go out? Or am I dressing for something else?”

He just gives you a smile, and you know instantly what he means. You give him a thumbs up while putting your bowl in the sink. You head to your room to get dressed. You see a notification on your phone, and you decide not to look at it for now. You already had a feeling you knew who it was. You open your closet and look around, leggings and a t-shirt it was.

 

~At SM Cloud Dance Room~

 

You throw Lay a water as he pauses the music. His song was stuck in your head now, and so were the movements. You mumble the lyrics of Sheep as you see him still practicing the next movements in the mirror. You dab your neck with a towel and throw it on your shoulder.

“What do you think about this?” he replies. He rolls his arms and then dabs to the side. You stare at him before sighing. You place a hand on your hip.

“I hope you know the dab is dying in the states,” you say. “It’s going extinct.”

“We aren’t in the states, are we?” he replies. You stick your tongue out as you sit on the ground. It had been a while since you danced with Lay, or anyone for that matter. You remember when you were younger you were constantly in ballet class. Your mother was super strict on your upbringing, just the thought of that makes your whole face sour. Lay rest a hand on your head, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing much,” you say. You weren’t really one to talk about your mom to others, not unless it was someone you were willing to open up to. While you were close with Lay and Baekhyun, you knew they have their own lives to worry about. You let out a sigh and stretch your arms. “Just thinking I’m going to be sore tomorrow.”

“Did I work you too hard?” he teases. You roll your eyes and throw your towel at him.

“You still owe me groceries. Hurry up,” you say. He nods, giving you a smile that show his subtle dimples before unplugging his ipod and heading to the changing room. You look at your phone, probably for the first time in a couple hours and notice your Kakao had plenty of unread messages.

**Daniel:** Morning~

He sent that as 7 am, and you felt a bit of regret for keeping him out way later than he should’ve been out. Another message pops up as you get ready to reply.

**Daniel:** Are you still asleep? Must be nice…

**You:** Sleeping? At this time? You’re crazy.

**Daniel:** She lives

**You:** I mean… I would hope so. If not, then this would be a weird conversation to have if I were dead. Oh, I still have your shirt. I’m guessing you might want that back?

**Daniel:** Possibly, but if it means so much to you, you can keep it.

**You:** No I insist good sir, please come and collect your belongings.

“Who you messaging?” Lay asks as he hovers over you. You yelp. You didn’t even hear him come in. Your phone vibrates with another message but you lock your phone and put it in your bag. “Is it a secret?”

“Just a friend I met recently,” you say while getting up onto your feet. You grab your bag and throw your hat on. You grab your sweatshirt in your arms and look at him. “Ready Mr. Superstar?”

“Don’t call me that, 傻瓜 (Shǎguā),” he calls you. You pout, knowing he just calls you a fool in Chinese when you tease him about things. “Let’s go buy your groceries.”

“Right behind you,” you say. He turns the lights off in the studio and you follow him out the door. You make your way to the garage, and pull you phone out.

**Daniel:** Well I’ll try my best to come collect my belongings. Shall we start our bet?

**You:** Good, by the way, we should set some rules down. First, the secret has to be just as good as the on given. Also, this stays between us. No one else should know about whatever this is. Are these two rules good with you?

**Daniel:** Sounds good with me except one more thing. We have to do this either in person or on the phone. If you don’t want anyone to know about it, better not leave any traces behind, right?

**You:** I agree. That’s actually really smart.

**Daniel:** If you’re ready, I’ll call you tonight when we get done with our schedule.

You pause for a moment. Climbing into the car Lay was renting during his time in South Korea, and put your phone down. Lay was starting it up, pulling up the navigation system to find a grocery store near your apartment. He sees you starring at him out of the corner of his eye and turns to you.

“What’s wrong?”

“If someone was willing to trade one of their secrets for one of their secrets, would you do it?” you ask him. He looks at you flabbergasted before rubbing the back of his neck. He puts some serious thought into in before finally answering you.

“It depends. If I trust them, I see no reason why not. 傻瓜, be careful though. There’s always a gray area when it comes to secrets. How far you want to go, and how they want to go is all up to you. You may find out things you don’t want to know,” he warns. “By the way who is this person anyway?”

“Just someone I play League with,” you nonchalantly say. It wasn’t a lie, it was the truth, you did play league with him _once._ You didn’t want to worry Lay too much, so you tell him it was just a thought. Most idol’s you were friends with was through the members, you never went out of your way to meet anyone. It was like a line you didn’t want to cross, and well, now you were definitely crossing that line with Daniel.

You unlock your phone and send one last message. You understood what Lay was saying. It wasn’t a game one could get out of easily. But maybe it was also something you wanted as well. Someone you could just spew nonsense to.

**You:** Call me whenever, I’ll be up.

 


	5. You Should Never Eat Alone

You struggle to open your apartment for probably the fifth time in the past 45 minutes. You finally finished bringing up the last of the packages and mail you had waiting for you downstairs and at the PO. You drop the last of your mail and packages on the floor. You usually swing by the PO on Tuesday and Saturday to pick up any packages and fan mail your fans send you. When you first got there, you posted a video on Instagram thanking them for all the gifts, and would upload an unboxing video when you sat down to open them.

However, you decide to open them up tomorrow morning. You went up and down flights of stairs for almost an hour carrying boxes. You were hungry and tired. Usually you use the elevator, but it was down for maintenance. Just your luck. Although it works out for you since you usually didn’t have to go in on Sunday to the clubhouse.

Back at the clubhouse, things were getting interesting as well. You were getting ready to play in another round of the summer playoffs. For the first time since you got here, you would be the starting ADC with Bang sitting out. KKoma wants to see how you do with the pressure of the first game, usually you would play the second or third game, depending on how it was going.

You run a hand through your hair, and head to the fridge. You were so thankful that Lay brought you groceries, even though you told him a million times you were capable of buying them yourself. He would just respond with, ‘what else am I supposed to spend my money on?’

Sometimes you hated him.

You pull out some Kimchi you had left, and some fresh fish you had brought today. Before you can even grab the rice cooker, or much less, the rice, the doorbell rings. You look over to where the entrance way. You assume someone must’ve ordered food, and the delivery person got the door wrong. You go back to making rice, and the doorbell rings again as you start measuring the water. You turn it off, and shake your hands on the way towards your door.

You open it, and see the familiar black cap and broad shoulders. You were confused as he tilts his head up and gives you a small smile. He was still wearing makeup from whatever schedule he had just came from. You thought he would be wearing an outfit from his schedule, but he was surprisingly dressed casually, as if he was coming from a practice.

“Come in?” you say opening the door a bit wider. He nods, walking into your apartment as if this is a perfectly normal thing to do. You pause for a moment, closing the door behind you. You lick your bottom lip, before you walk into the living room where he was sitting on the couch. “Uh… so like… why are you here? I thought you were going to call me?”

“Sorry, I texted you asking if I could come over but you never responded so I came over,” he grins. You forgot you phone had died at the clubhouse, and you were supposed to plug it in as soon as you got home. Then you stopped at your PO, and completely forgot about it.

“I see, so because I didn’t respond, you came over? What if I wasn’t home?” you ask him. He looks off to the side a bit, pressing his lips together.

“You do know, your Instagram’s public, so I can watch your stories. You posted a video saying thank you for all the gifts like an hour ago,” he says.

“Didn’t I tell you not to stalk me? What a creep,” you tease before heading back into the kitchen. “And let me guess. You got my apartment number off some secret website?”

“No, there’s a picture of you posing outside your apartment,” he says while showing you the said image. You walk back to him, and look over his shoulder. It was true. About 2 weeks ago, you found a mirror on the street. You bent down to take a picture, and read the caption.

“So you just put one and one together. You’re a whole lot smarter than I thought,” you tell him. He gives you a mischievous smirk before suddenly standing up. You take a step back, not wanting to get knocked over. He claps his hands together and rolls up his sleeves.

“So what are you making for dinner?” he asks. You stare at him, looking into his eyes before following his gaze. He’s eyeing the fish you have out on your counter and the kimchi as well.

“Just grilled mackerel with some bulgogi sauce. Kyungsoo-oppa taught me how to make it,” you explain. You walk back into the kitchen, and he follows behind you. You give him another confused look, and Daniel raises his eyebrow. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“What does it looks like? I’m helping cook.” You sigh. Obviously knowing there was just no point in trying to talk him out of it. You were very aware of that things usually went his way, one way or another.

“Have you eaten?” you ask. You gives you a smile, and you let out another heavy sigh. “The least you could do was bring some drinks. Don’t you have manners?”

“You’re right. Next time, I won’t forget,” he beams another smile at you. It was your turn to raise an eyebrow.

“Next time?” you ask. You add more rice to the cooker, and turn the water back on to measure for the extra person you now had to cook for. “What else do you want to eat as a side dish? I have ingredients for most thing.”

“Well that gives me a reason to come back over, right?” You realize what his intentions are and laugh. Kang Daniel is smooth. You admit it to yourself. Even when one of the boys came by unexpectedly (mostly Baekhyun, Lay, or Kai) they still brought you something whether it be a pastry or a small gift. He adds on, “whatever side dish you feel like making, I’ll be okay with.”

“Oh, I’m not making it.” You shake your head. “You are. You did say you wanted to help, right?” You tilt you hear a bit to the right, and give him a smile. You point to the fridge, and nod at him. “Please, show me what the national center can cook.”

~1 hour later~

Daniel almost burnt down your apartment, possibly not on purpose, almost within 10 seconds of turning the stove on. Right after that you just told him to set the table and you would make the food. You finish the fish up, and slide it onto a plate. “You better not be eating those side dishes!” you shout at him.

“You don’t trust me?” he asks from the living room. You pour the sauce over it, getting some on your finger. You walk over to him, licking the tip of your finger. He immediately gets up, seeing your finger in your mouth. He pulls your hand away and examines it. “Did you cut yourself?”

“What? No I got some sauce on it. If I did you would’ve probably heard me curse,” you reply. He looks at you before awkwardly letting go of your hand. You set the plate of food down and sit on the ground. You pat the spot next to you and Daniel gives you a smile before sitting down beside you.

“Thank you for the food,” he says before using some chopsticks to take a bite of the mackerel. His face lights up and you grin at him. “It’s good!”

“I would hope so. I’m the one who made it all,” you reply. You use some chopsticks to pick up a piece of mackerel.

“So who should go first?” he says.

“What?” you say while staring at him.

“Should you tell me your secret first?” His eyes meet your own. “Or should I tell you mine?”

“Ah~” you say. You drink some of your water, never really breaking eye contact with him. “Since you brought it up, why don’t you go first.”

“Then we can start after dinner,” he replies. He breaks eye contact first, focusing on the food out in front of you two. He smiled softly before taking another bite, and you couldn’t help but wonder if this is what it felt like to eat with someone.

“I usually don’t eat with someone,” you say suddenly. He looks up after swallowing some of his food. “That’s my secret. I usually eat by myself, or I have been for a long time. Even when I have people over, we go out to eat or they eat without me.”

“Why?” he asks while turning off the water.

“I don’t know. I guess it became a habit. My parents were always working so no one was ever home to eat dinner with me,” you shrug. You never mind eating by yourself, you just always turned the TV on or watched movies while eating. It made it seem less awkward for you than sitting in silence.

“Ah, I see,” he says.

“I don’t mind either. It’s just something I’m not use to,” you honestly add on. “Alright, I gave you mine, now you go.” Daniel set his chopsticks down for a second, pouring some water for the both of you.

“For a while, I didn’t want to become an Idol. Actually, if I didn’t do well I was thinking of maybe going to the army like Jisung-hyung,” he tells you. You stare at him, that was not quite what you were expecting.

“But didn’t you place high the first ranking?” you ask.

“I thought you didn’t watch Produce 101?” he gives you an amused look. You frown and roll your eyes. You weren’t going to admit that after you met him, you secretly binged all the episodes of the survival show.  Hell no.

“That’s for me to know, and you to find out,” you say. He gives a light chuckle to your response, it was such an American thing to say. He nods, and ponders a bit.

“You never know. Even if I did well the first episodes I still could’ve lost because they decided to vote for someone else. Everyone thought Samuel was going to finish in the top 11, but he didn’t,” he says.

“I know! I was so upset. He deserved to debut with you guys,” you reply.

“So you did watch it then?” he asks.

“We’re not talking about that, are we?” you question back.

“You did watch it!” he laughs. He claps his hands, finding this amusing. You pout, obviously not happy that he exposed you. You were just so curious about it. You barely had time to watch TV when this was going on. You were busy with the spring playoffs when the first episode aired. After getting done with the and were streaming consistently. Even though some of your viewers asked who was you top trainee, you had no idea what they were talking about.

“Leave me alone!” you shout.  “I was just a tiny bit curious.”

“It’s cute that you won’t admit that you watched it though,” he admits. “I didn’t think you would take time to watch it.”

“Well… anything is available online when you search hard enough,” you offer some advice. Before you realize it, you two were deep in conversation. Food was long gone, and time seem to fly by. You guys ended up talking about everything irrelevant, and nothing relevant. Before you realized it, hours had passed by. You just happen to look at the clock seeing the time and look back at Daniel who was picking up some dishes. “It’s almost 11, shouldn’t you be getting back soon?”

“I think so too,” he replies stretching his arms behind his back. “Should I help you pick up real quick?”

“Up to you. I’m not going to hold you hostage when you clearly have somewhere to be,” you reply. He sets the dishes down in the sink and gives you a soft smile. You were right behind him with some more, and set the empty plates down on the countertop next to the sink. “What?”

“This was fun,” he admits.

“It… was,” you agree after a moment of hesitation.

“Can I visit you later this week?” he asks.

“If you want. But text me this time. If you show up unexpectedly, I won’t answer the door,” you warn.

“Alright, I will!” he promises as you follow him to the front door. He slips on his shoes before looking back at you. “I will text when I have a bit of free time. I’ll definitely comeback.”

“You make it sound as if we aren’t ever going to see each other,” you reply. He doesn’t say anything back, but instead just winks at you. He opens the door, and walks out, closing it behind him softly. Despite that, you hear him running down the hall, probably trying to catch the last bus. You couldn’t help but smile when you began thinking about what you were going to cook next time.


	6. 1D2M

You hit the nexus, watching it explode. You wrapped a practice game with KT winning 3:2. You throw your headphones beside your keyboard, obviously pleased you won but not pleased with your overall performance. Neither you or Bang did well enough for it to be considered satisfactory in your books. Although you started the round, it ended horribly. Bang went in next, and also failed to get a win.

As an ADC it was your job to put out enough damage to turrets and enemy champions in team fights. However, you failed to accomplish anything in the first round, and same with Bang in the second. You went back in on the 3rd and 5th round, riding off your teams momentum. But as an ADC you were upset at yourself.

You begin packing up and feel your phone vibrate in your bag. You pull it out and see multiple messages from various people.

 **Bacon:** How did the practice match go?

 **Heenim:** lol I keep watching your montages of failed flashes and missed ults. <3 fighting!

 **Leadernim:** Good luck today! We’re cheering for you.

You had a habit of not looking at your phone before matches, it was because you didn’t want added pressure of knowing people you knew were watching you. In some ways it helped, but in other ways it didn’t. Right before you put your phone in your back pocket another messaged arrived.

 **National Center:** How did it go? Did you play well?

You smile a bit. Daniel said the night before he wasn’t going to be able to watch the game due to his hectic schedule. He felt so bad, and you spent an hour on the phone convincing him it was perfectly okay. Now, here he was

 **You:** I played horribly. I’m honestly disappointed in myself, I underestimated them in so many ways and failed to show Coach Kkoma I could be a starting member.

You follow the rest of the members out, not listening to a word they were saying. You just put a fake smile on your face, not wanting to show your low spirit. Once again, your phone vibrates in your hand and you look at the message.

 **National Center:** Since I’m still new to it, I don’t really know what bad or good plays are. But you’re down, so should I come over to cheer you up?

You re-read the message again. The last time he came over was when you made dinner, and you’ve seen him since then. One time, Xiumin decided to facetime you while filming for his new show. He was checking in on you, making sure you watered his plants for the night. You saw Daniel perk his head up, hearing your voice, and you couldn’t help but laugh finding his actions similar to Vivi’s when she hears you enter Sehun’s apartment. Of course, Xiumin didn’t have the slightest clue as to why you laughed all of a sudden, but the less he knew the better.

The two of you hung out as often as you could. He would come over, sometimes being almost midnight, and would watch a movie on the couch. Twice, he fell asleep on the couch, but you didn’t bother to wake him because you felt bad. Every time you woke up, he was gone. He always left a thankyou note written on your whiteboard that stuck to the fridge.  In total, the amount of secrets you shared were the ones that follow:

  1. You weren’t used to eating with someone and you usually ate alone. In fact, you preferred it that way.
  2. Your mother was super strict on your upbringing, so you were forced to take particular classes she only approved of.
  3. You did ballet for 8 years before quitting which lead to another argument with your mom.
  4. You found league of legends through a friend and would play it all the time at internet café and worked there throughout high school till you formed your first team.



Daniel  would never ask more questions after you tell him something. You knew he probably wanted to. He probably wanted to ask you a million questions, but he never did. Just like how you never asked him a single thing as well. It was a mutual respect. But so far, you learned 4 things about him.

  1. He thought he would place a lot lower, and even considered going into the army with Jisung if things didn’t work out.
  2. With his first paycheck, he wanted to donate it to animal shelter’s but his parents were against it.
  3. He continued to b-boy through his teacher’s recommendation who he wants to see soon.
  4. He actually didn’t have a second career option if things didn’t work out for him as an artist.



Someone tapped your shoulder and you almost spewed out every curse word you could possibly think of at the moment before realizing it was Huni. He gave you a smirk before eyeing your phone, you quickly click the power button and stare at him.

“Hmm?” you say.

“What’s going on there?” he asks.

“Absolutely nothing,” you respond.

“Are you sure about that?” he asks you. You roll your eyes, not sure how else to tell Huni to leave you alone without raising suspicion. Instead you meet his eyes and nod.

“!00% sure,” you say.

“Ah, one of my friends is interested in you,” Huni says. Your eyebrows scrunch together, not really sure if he was being serious or making fun of your current relationship status. “I’m serious.”

“Oppa, I’m not interested in dating,” you say.

“Even if it was Lay?” he teases. You punch him in response.

“What are we doing over here?” Peanut asks.

“Making fun of (y/n) crush on Lay,” Huni responds.

“Ya!  Seunghoon!” you shout. “I don’t have a crush on Lay-oppa.”

“But didn’t you hang out with him all day the other morning?” Peanut chimes in.

“Oh? Is (y/n) sliding into the dms?” Bang asks.

“Aigoo, look at her growing up,” Wolf teases.

“Oppa,” you say while looking at Faker. He catches your eye sight and nods. “Help me.”

“I wonder what I should eat today.” Sanghyeok completely ignores your request and continues to scroll  through his phone.

“Alright, that’s enough.” Coach Kkoma saves you from your teammates onslaught of teasing. “Get back home today and rest up. Tomorrow you guys have it off so treat yourselves to some needed rest. We’ll go over our performance today as a team next time we are all in the clubhouse. There were many mistakes we need to fix.”

You r eyes wander around, and you feel you phone buzz again. You look down to see another text message from Daniel.

 **National center:** So… I’ll take that as a yes? Cool, I’ll bring chicken and beer.

“(y/n) are you listening?” Coach Kkoma asks. You  look up and nod, and out of the corner of your eye you see SKT snicker to their side as you put your phone down and nod. “Alright, let’s get going. I’ll send each of you a recording of the game for you to go over and review what you did wrong.”

Of course Coach Kkoma would do this. He never lets you take a break even when he says you are taking a break. Hopefully when you go on your team vacation, things will be different. Hopefully.

 

~Back home~

 

You barely managed to arrive home before remembering you never responded to Daniel’s offer of Chicken and Beer, or how they say it here in Korea: chimaek. You groan as you make your way down your street, kicking a rock along the road. Your phone had died about 30 minutes ago as you were leaving the stadium, and everyone else was busy using their portable chargers to lend you theirs. Of course, today had to be the day yours was at home.

You climb the flight of stairs, and not really to your surprise you see the tall idol sitting in front of your door. He was playing on the Nintendo switch he had brought with him. You see a duffle bag next to him along with the chicken and another plastic bag full of drinks, as if he was planning on going somewhere after drinking. You see his eyes dart to you, before realizing it is you. With a click of a button, he pauses the game and gets to his feet.

“You never texted back,” he complains.

“Hello to you too,” you greet. “What’s with the bag?”

“Oh, the members think I’m at the dance studio,” he replies. “I swung by to pick up my jacket, so it wasn’t a complete lie.”

“But really, you’re here eating chicken with me. They’d be jealous, wouldn’t they?” you giggle happily while opening the door. You know well enough idols are on diets when they promote, they usually cut out certain food groups or certain food types all together. Your favorite thing to do was invite Kai and Sehun over and make all the food they couldn’t eat due to their comeback.

“In one way more than others,” he agrees. Daniel tosses his bag on the side, making himself at home. He places the chimaek on top of the coffee table and turning on the tv. You shake your head and walk to your room, changing out of your clothes to put on an oversized t-shirt and some shorts. You walk back out and he’s already opening wo beer cans holding one up for you. You jump over the couch and sit next to him, taking the can out of his hand. “What do you feel like watching?”

“I have School 2017 recorded from the other night because I couldn’t watch it since I got busy, or we can rent a movie on demand. I don’t particularly mind,” you say. You take a sip of your beer and grab a piece of chicken from the container. Daniel puts on your recording and you smile since you were completely happy with the situation.

“So if you win spring playoffs, what happens then?” he asks.

“We go to worlds. No matter where we place since we won MSI and Spring we qualify for worlds. Well, these last couple weeks have been close. If we go to the final round we might be against Longzhu… ah sorry. I know you don’t understand a lot of it,” you apologize. Daniel shakes his head and gives you a small chuckle. He casually places a hand on your head, stroking you hair.

“It’s fine. I like hearing you talk,” he reassures you. You make eye contact with him, and his eye soften up. You began to wonder if he was like this with others, or if it was just you. The aura he gives off on stage was completely different than the one you get. If he was a charismatic idol in the eyes of the public, than to you it would be he’s just a giant goofball. He leans in closer to you, and you suddenly freeze like a deer caught in headlights.

Your heart couldn’t keep up with the situation as it starts to pick up speed, and you could practically qualify for having a heart attack right now. He wipes away some of the crumbs on the corner of your mouth. He realizes the situation, and instantly backs up.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“No. It’s alright,” you manage to get out. You clear your throat as Daniel chugs his drink before setting it down on the table.

“Another one?” he asks. You nod, trying to finish your drink as he gets up to grab another two from the fridge.

 _What the hell just happened? I’m being weird_ , you think to yourself. Sure you and Daniel would get flirty but noting too extreme. You would always blame it on the alcohol, but it was always harmless flirtatious remarks. You feel something cold press against your cheek, and you flinch away. Looking up, you see Daniel’s smirk spread across his lips. The same smirk he gets when he’s getting mischievous.

“I told you not to do that,” you warn.

“Sorry,” he apologizes. Once again, he takes a seat next to you.

The two of you talked about you past couple of days. How it went, what your plans were. You didn’t even realize, between the two of you, you guys finished 14 beers. 6 from what Daniel brought plus the 8 you had sitting in your fridge.

“I’m serious,” you giggle. You set down your drink 8th drink, already having a buzz heavier than usual. “I walked in on them doing it while streaming. My account got suspended for 3 days, and it wasn’t even my fault. I felt so bad that I exposed Nate like that, but the look on his girlfriend’s face was priceless.”

 “What if someone walked in on you? What would you do?” he ask trying to not laugh through his sentence.

“Depends. If you were to walk in I’d ask if you’d want to join,” you instantly reply. The amount of alcohol you had in you is enough that you could shamelessly say things like this and not feel embarrassed. His mischievous smirk return once again and he pulls you up onto his lap.

“Really?” he asks.

“Yes really, why would I lie?” you respond. He leans in close, so close you could feel his breath brush against your skin.

“What if we were the one’s doing it and someone else walked in? Then what would you say?” he whispers into your ear. You pull back, looking him in the eyes. You were stumped.

“What-what do you mean?” you ask.

“Let me show you,” he says. His lips were quick to cover yours. You couldn’t even question his intentions because everything was happening so quick. While his lips were working magic on you, his hands roam up your thighs. His finger were still cold from holding the can, and goosebumps travel up your spine. You let out a small gasp from the burning sensation of his hand on your skin, and he takes the opportunity to dart his tongue into your mouth.

Without removing his hands from your skin and his lips from your mouth, he pushes you onto your back. He leaves your lips, his mouth trailing down your neckline. Sucking and biting every part leaving small red traces of where he’s been. You bite the back of your hand, trying not to moan too loud while your free hand is holding onto the couch.

One of his hands grab onto your breast, through your bra. You could feel the warmth of his hand through the sheer material of your sports bra. His other hand was playing with the drawstring of your shorts, before a finger slips in underneath the hem and traces the your pantie line. He moves his hands down from your breast to where it’s also lying on your hip.

He pulls both your bodies up, moving from the couch into your room. His lips didn’t move from yours, almost as if they were inseparable for the time being. He lays you ontop of the comforter, and his movements stop for a moment. You finally had the opportunity for your mind to catch up.

“Can I take it off?” he asks sincerely.

“Take what off?” you reply as you look up. You see him starring at you, hovering right over your stomach. The way his tongue licked his bottom lips so seductively had you swooning.

“Everything,” he says. Instead of replying with words, you simply nod and he waste no time stripping you of your t-shirt. He kisses every inch of your skin while his hands unclip your bra from behind. It’s tossed to the side now forgotten. He places one of your breast in his mouth, and you feel his teeth tug at the sensitive nub. You moan out his name, not sure wether it’s from pleasure or pain.

His hands work quickly to tug off you shorts, and then they move up to caress every inch of your thighs. He moved his mouth from one nub to the other. Your hands ditch your mouth, no longer caring if he hears your moans or not. They find their way into his soft hear, and he chuckles from within. The soft vibration he creates only add to the simulation as he moves further down your body, kissing you naval on his way down. While his mouth worked on your chest, his fingers worked on another part of your body.

His slender fingers played with the waistline of your panties after he was satisfied of touching every part of your thighs. He slid them centimeter by centimeter down when his mouth was near. You let out a groan of frustration and you looked down on him.

“Please,” you beg softly. You see his dark eyes fill with lust as he smirks. He moves them down your leg and he places a finger on your core once which earns a moan from you. He teases you more, never sliding his finger in, and you try grind your hips against him.

“You’re so wet,” he says. You pull his head up, the two of you meet his eyes.

 _“Please…”_ you beg again.

He doesn’t hesitate a second longer and slides his finger in. He pumps in and out of you slowly. You hear him say something but you didn’t catch it as he puts your clit in his mouth. He soon adds a second finger as your moans get louder. He suddenly takes them out, and he positions himself against your entrance.

“What is it that you want?” he purrs into your ear. He moves against your entrance and you grip his shoulders, drawing him closer.

“You…” you pant. “I want you. Daniel-“ you couldn’t even finish your sentence as he suddenly penetrates you. He doesn’t give you time to adjust as he continues to pump into you with powerful movements.

“Shit. You’re so tight,” he whispers. He grinds against your hips, and he bites on your collarbone. The pain and pleasure mix together and you let out another moan. It couldn’t been the fact you were drunk, or you hadn’t had any sexual contact with the opposite sex for a good while, but he was giving you the high you craved. All while whispering sweet nothings into your ear. It didn’t take him long to find your sweet spot, and every time he hit it long moans would escape your mouth.

“Fuck… Daniel I’m gonna…” you say as he picks up his speed yet again.

“Me too,” he groans as his movements become more haste but still holding their power. He brought you to full ecstasy as you reached your orgasm. His hips still grinding inside of you before he finished himself off inside.

He collapsed on the bed next to you, one of his arm holding you close to him. You could feel his chest raising and falling, and you had no idea what to say. Much less, even make of the situation. The buzz you had earlier was long gone, and you just couldn’t help but think to yourself what in the actual hell just happened. How did it happen? You open your mouth to say something, but you feel his chest vibrate and he lets out a soft snore.

You slowly get up, but Daniel’s grip around your waist wouldn’t let up even in his sleep. So here you were, stuck between Daniel and the covers. Even if you didn’t understand what was happening, you too realized fighting your own sleep wouldn’t get you anywhere at all. Soon, you were tuck into Daniel ignoring your own thoughts about how you shouldn’t be doing this.

‘One drunk night is all it is.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1D2M= 1 drink 2 many.  
> Hope you liked the small smut I added in this chapter.


	7. Secrets Repackaged

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a while to write a chapter or two since I went back to school. But I feel inspired lately, and here are two new chapters. :) hope you like them. Thanks for the support!

You woke up the next morning full of regrets. Regretful that you drank so much beer, regretful you left the television on, regretful things got out of hand, and regretful you slept with Kang Daniel. Some things were high up your list than others, but you weren’t going to put much thought into it. Your head was already pounding as it was. You slowly got up, your eyes taken aback by the amount of sunlight that was entering your room. You realized you were wearing Daniel’s hoodie he had on the night before.

You took a moment to look around seeing the covers thrown back. All you could hear in your ears were the sinful moans you let out as flashbacks happen. You made your way off the bed, ignoring the lingering soreness left in your legs. After sleeping for some bit, you both woke up due to the sound of the television. One thing led to another and well a couple more sins were added to your list. You rubbed your eyes as you pulled up some underwear from a drawer before heading out.

“(Y/n), I helped myself to some of your food, and I brought some bubble tea from Sehunnie,” Baekhyun’s voice came from the sofa, but you didn’t even have the energy to turn your head. All you knew was that you were hungry. You reached for the cereal box on top of the fridge, but something wasn’t right. Something felt off.

“Hyung, should I tell her she’s not wearing pants or you?” you hear Kai’s voice as you drop the box of cereal on your head and it scatters on the floor.

“I think she knows,” Baekhyun says as you turn around. You lock eyes with Baekhyun. Baek eyes you for a second before suddenly getting up.

“Ya, what are you doing?” you say as he approaches you, his ever never leaving you. You look at Kai, who was now a couple of feet behind his elder. He clearly had no idea what was going on either. Baekhyun grabs the collar of Daniel’s hoodie and pulls it to the side revealing the forgotten love marks from the night before.

“Who did this to you?” Baekhyun asks.

“What? Let go,” you say. “It’s none of your business. I don’t need you to lecture me about what I do on my free time.”

“That’s not it,” Baekhyun says as he lets go of the collar. He pulls out his phone trying to unlock it before he also gets on the phone with someone. He walks off to your room, not even explaining anything to you.

“(Y/n) I think we should go to a hospital. Have you not looked in the mirror?” Kai says as you shake your head.

“No I haven’t. I just woke up. What’s going on? You guys are scaring me,” you say as you pull away. Baekhyun hands you his phone as Kai runs a hand through his hair, already calling someone on his phone. He gives you a worried look before speaking into the phone.

“Hi, hello I’m calling to set up an appointment for (Y/n). Yes… no… this is her friend. Guardian? I’m with him… yes her date of birth is (D/M/Y). She about X high and weighs about X kilos. She has sever bruising on her neck…” Kai trails off as he goes to grab his jacket along with whatever else they brought over. You look at Baek as he reenters the room. Your hand goes to your neck. All this because of some marks? How bad could they be?

Baek hands you some shorts, a hair tie, a pair of sunglasses, and a mirror. You only take the mirror as you hold it up to see what all the fuss was about. You knew what hickies looked like. They were small, easy to cover up, and had a light pinkish-red hue to them. The one’s on your neck were nothing close to that. They were deep purple, and expanded to the size of half your fist.

“You need to tell me right now. Did someone do this to you?” Baek asks as you try getting dressed. Your mind was a mess, and trying to get things in order was making it worse.

“No, I mean yes. He did but he didn’t. I mean, in a way,” you mumble out.

“Our manager pushed the recording to tomorrow so we can go with (y/n) to the hospital. He says to call when we get there,” Baekhyun explains. Kai hands him his hat and sets your bag on the counter.

“Let’s go,” Kai says as he puts his sunglasses on and takes his keys out of his pocket. What the hell was going on with you.

 

~At The Hospital~

 

The female nurse ogles Kai and Baekhyun as you awkwardly sit there in the hospital gown. She and one other were the only nurses who was allowed to enter the room. It was due to the guys wanting to keep a low profile. You didn’t have a complain about it, you didn’t want anyone walking in and out of here. On your way to the hospital you called Coach Kkoma and told him what was going on. He understood and told you to take some rest, and he wouldn’t tell the guys anything until you knew what was happening.

Once you first arrived, they took you to get your blood drawn, did some other exercises, did a CT scan and now you were waiting for the results. The nurses were kind enough to cover the bruises with some wrap so it didn’t look like someone beat you with a stick or something. You sigh as you look around the room, trying to keep your mind occupied.

“Maybe she has the thing Lay-hyung has,” Kai says trying to take everyone’s mind off of the fact no one had an idea of what was going on.

“I thought you had to be born with it, or does it develop over time?” Baekhyun asks.

“I’m pretty sure its genetic,” you pitch in. You hear a light knock on the door, before all three of you look over and see the door slowly open. A western doctor walks in, his light brown hair slicked back, and his light brown eyes scanning the paper. The three of you mumble a hello in Korean, not sure if he spoke it or not. He looks up and offers you a small smile before sitting down across the desk from you and Baek. Kai stands right behind you two.

“Hello, would you like a seat?” he asks Kai, his Korean flowing nicely. Kai shakes his head, preferring to stand. The doctor nods, before likcing his lips as he flips the page. He clicks his pen before turning to Baekhyun. “It says here you’re her guardian. Are you related to (y/n)?”

“No, but I am responsible for her. If anything happens to her, I take full responsibility for it,” Baekhyun says. The doctor nods, not responding but scribbling some stuff down.

“I’m going to ask you a couple more questions that Nurse Choi didn’t have time to ask you. Please answer as honestly as possible while we wait for the CT scans to come in,” he says. You nod, your hands fidgeting with the gown you had on.

“When was your last menstrual cycle? And do you remember how long it lasted? Do you regularly have them?”

“Like two weeks ago, maybe around 6-9 days? Yes, I get them every month.”

“When was the last time you had intercourse?”

“Last night,” you answer. You couldn’t help but get embarrassed having Baekhyun and Kai overhear you conversation with the doctor. The doctor writes some more stuff down and you look at Baekhyun who was already starring at you. Kai finally pulls up a chair and sits in between the two of you.

“Last night?” Kai whispers. “With who?”

“You wouldn’t know him,” you whisper back.

“Is now really the time for you to be keeping stuff from us?” Baekhyun asks.

“I think there are other things that are a little more important than figuring out who I slept with last night,” you say. You cross your arms and look away. You weren’t about to start fighting with them right now, you didn’t have the energy. The doctor’s computer dings and he opens up an email right away. He studies his screen before nodding.

“Before I turn the screen, may the two of you give us some privacy?” the doctor asks Baekhyun and Kai.  Baekhyun open his mouth but you rest a hand on his and shake your head.

“No, it’s fine,” you respond to the doctor. “I’ll tell them whatever you say. So you might as well say it so they can ask questions if they have any.” You shoot Kai a quick glance and a soft smile before nodding for the doctor to continue. He turns the screen so the three of you can see the display.

“You see these dots right here, these are found all throughout your body,” he says as he flips through the images. “Some are much larger than others. In the questions the nurse gave you, you answered you continuously felt tired, short of breath, headaches, and sore throat is that correct?”

“Yes…” you say softly. You feel Kai put his hand on top of yours and he gives you a tight squeeze.

“It’s due to Chronic Lymphonic Lukemia,” he says. He sets his papers down and stares at you gently. “I recommend getting treated as soon as possible to determine if the cancer responds to chemo or radiation therapy. Since it’s chronic, the growth is slow but it can change to acute lymphonic lukemia at any moment. It’s a more aggressive, fast growing cancer. I’ll give you three a moment to process the information. When you’re ready Nurse Choi can go over some treatment plans and I’ll come back to answer any questions you have.”

All those times you had a headache was because you honestly thought you were dehydrated or it was from the smog in Seoul. All the times you woke up with a sore throat you thought it was because of the fine dust the cause your allergies to act up. All the times you felt out of breath or tired was because you thought you were out of shape. You bruised easily, but to you that was normal, ever since you were a kid you bruised just like a peach.

To think this was the explanation.

“(Y/n)… what are you thinking about?” Baek asks you while squeezing your hand. You didn’t even notice the doctor and the nurses left to give you guys some privacy. You were too busy trying to convince yourself this isn’t true.

“I wonder if I’ll go bald,” you whisper.

“This is serious!” Kai yells at you as he gets to his feet. He runs a hand through his brown hair while looking at you worriedly.

“What am I supposed to say? Kai! I’m scared! I’m terrified. I’m scared I’m going to die. I don’t even want to think about it.” You burst out crying and Kai hugs you stroking your hair. “I didn’t want this. I promise I didn’t want this.”

Baekhyun gets on his knees beside you and squeezes your hand again. He draws a circle on your hand before looking up at you. “I know. No one does. It’s going to be okay. I promise. Let’s get out of here for now, and take you home. We can always come back about information about treatments. We don’t need all the answers right this second.”

“Can we get jjangjanmyeon on our way back home,” you sniffle as you wipe your tears away. You see some mascara left on Kai’s gray shirt and try rubbing it away. “Sorry…”

“Don’t be. I was throwing it out anyways,” he smiles at you gently. You knew he was joking, but it was a way to make you feel better. “Go get changed. We’ll take care of the hospital fees. Don’t worry about today, okay?”

You nod before grabbing your bag with your clothes in it and heading out to the changing room. This morning was so hectic you didn’t have time to look at your phone. It wasn’t until you finally sat down in the little plastic chair you looked at your phone. The usual messages from the group chats for SKT, a couple messages from EXO members who wanted to get together this weekend, and a couple messages from the guy who spent the night.

**National Center:** Sorry I left early, I had to get back for our morning schedule. I’ll make it up to you.

**You:** Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to make anything up.

You throw your phone down and lean against the wall. Even if you knew you were surrounded by people, and had so many around you, you couldn’t help but feel completely and helplessly alone. For the first time, in a long time, you hated it.

 

You open the door to your apartment after Suho dropped you off. He had run into you guys on the way to get jjangjanmyeon. You told him what was going on since the atmosphere the three of you gave off was that similar to a funeral; quiet, depressing, and tired. You made the three of them promise not to tell anyone, including the rest of the members. If they were going to know, it should be through you and your own words.

You dropped your medicines and keys on the counter. The doctor prescribed some pills for multiple things. One medication was for pain, another was for dizziness, as well as some for your low platelet (he was looking into a transfusion as soon as possible this was just temporary), and some other stuff for symptoms as they popped up.

You let out a sigh. You laid on your sofa opening up insta and see all your recent notifications is of people wishing you well. You turn on the tv and set your feet on top of the coffee table. You take a picture and post it without much thought just a simple caption that read: ‘Going to the doctor really means you’re seriously sick.’ You yawn, pulling the throw blanket off the back of the couch and cover yourself with it.

 

You don’t remember when you fell asleep. You were watching tv and the next thing you knew you were waking up to someone knocking on the door. You groggily sat up, first checking your phone to see if someone texted you they were coming over.

**3:02 PM**

**National Center:** You’re sick? How? I was just there

**National Center:** Should I bring something?

**3:13 PM**

**National Center 2 missed calls**

**4:47 PM**

**National Center:** Answer me or call me back. I’m worried.

**National Center:** (y/n) are you mad at me? I swear I would’ve stayed if I could.

**7:09 PM**

**National Center 3 missed calls**

**8:37 PM**

**National Center:** We’re at our last schedule for today.

**National Center:** I’m coming over after we finish this photoshoot

**9:31 PM**

**National Center:** Please be home

**10:46 PM**

**National Center 2 missed calls**

**11:51 PM**

**National Center:** I’m on my way right now.

**12:19 AM**

**National Center:** I’m 2 minutes away

“(y/n)!” Daniel shouted through the door. You didn’t have to look at him to know how desperate he was to see if you were okay. You rested your hand on the door and hesitated. Should you let him in? Or shouldn’t you?

_“Hypothetically speaking, oppa,” you say to Baek as you throw some stuff in the shopping cart. Baek put whatever junk food you threw in back on the shelf in its proper place. You frown before putting it back and then moving on to somewhere further down the aisle. You came at a good time, there weren’t many people in the store and whoever was in the store were older folks taking their time. “If I were to see someone who was an idol and it led somewhere, what would you think?”_

_“I would think it’s a bad idea,” he says honestly. He stops in front of the dairy section and grabs you a half-gallon of milk._

_“Why?” you ask. He drops it into the cart before looking at you._

_“Because you don’t deserve it. You deserve someone who’s going to be there. Whether you’re sick or having a bad day, he can’t drop what he’s doing to come see you. He won’t be able to come over whenever he wants and he has to go back eventually. We only swing by in the mornings just to make sure you’re doing okay. But we also don’t come every day. If you were to date an idol… I feel like you would be hurt more than you realize it. You don’t see them as often as you think. Their schedule gets busier or yours does, and you have less time for them. The only time you see a recent picture of them is through Instagram. Being in a relationship is hard enough, being in one with an idol is much harder. But whether you do or don’t it’s up to you,” Baekhyun says. You nod understanding his points._

_You also thought the same thing, and after seeing Daniel for a couple weeks. Or when he fell asleep on your shoulder due to a movie, and a little nudge would wake him up. Or the fact when he was really out, he would snore so loud you pretty sure the neighbor could hear. You didn’t mind though. You would just let him sleep as you finished the movie yourself. You always made a little extra of the things he liked knowing he’ll want to eat more, and less of what he didn’t like just so you didn’t have to see him try avoiding it. You also started waiting to watch certain shows so you could watch them together when he came over next. You couldn’t ignore how you would be excited when he would text ‘I’m on the way.’ Right before he left he always patted your head as if to say ‘I’ll be right back.’ Never once did he ever say goodbye._

_“If it’s Lay-hyung though. I think I’ll make an exception,” he smirks. You raised your fist to punch Baekhyun, but decided it wasn’t worth your time. Mostly because you were in public, and hitting an idol is a no-no here. It would have to wait till you got home._

Here you were. Keeping those things in mind as you decide whether to let him in or not. You hear a small thud on the door, and peak through the eyehole. You see him press his against his head on the door.

“Are you even home? Or are you just ignoring me?” he asks loud enough as if he knew you were there. You swallow hard. You hear some more shuffling and look back out. You can only see the top of his head as he sits down in front of your door.

_‘Fuck it,’_ you think as you go to open the door. You reach for the lock, and remember the bandages you had on your neck. _I can’t… if he sees he’ll want to know._

“If you’re upset that I left without saying anything, I’m sorry. It was still dark out and I didn’t want to wake you,” he explains. It was your turn to press your head against the door, trying your best not to cry.

_‘That’s not it,’_ you wanted to say.

“If it’s because you think I was using you, I promise I wasn’t. I wouldn’t. I-you…” he sighs frustrated that he couldn’t find the right words. “You mean a lot to me. More than I realized. If you’re home… please open the door.”

_‘I can’t… I’m sorry,’_ you think as you sat down on your side of the door. You didn’t realize you were crying as you saw tears fall onto the ground. The two of you sat like that for a while, but after perhaps an hour, he got up.

_Whether you’re sick or having a bad day, he can’t drop what he’s doing to come see you. He won’t be able to come over whenever he wants, and he has to go back eventually._ You knew Baekhyun was right, but a part of you wished Daniel would stay. That he would keep knocking on the door till one of the neighbors told him to go home. You were sure he would’ve stayed the whole night out there if he didn’t have to go back, but you wouldn’t know because after an hour he got up and left.. He was nothing as he appeared to be on television. But Baekhyun was right again. Relationships were hard enough, being in one with an idol must be much harder.


	8. Beautiful

You could no longer participate in the rest of the tournaments, including worlds as an SKT member. The coaches agreed you should focus on recovering. You couldn’t even complain, you could pass out on stage and then everyone in the world would know. Instead you would hang back and watch worlds from the comfort of your home or maybe Heechul’s. The coach’s respected your wish as to keep it a secret about your health conditions until you had a plan more set in stone.

You walk out of the office, feeling better after getting a few days of rest and staying home. The shock of having leukemia hasn’t faded, but has subsided into you accepting that you have it. The bruises that were once on your neck are now gone, or are more easily covered with makeup.

“Did you get over your cold?” you hear Peanut ask while you walk by. You give a smile before sitting in the computer across from him.

“Did you not expect me to recover so soon?” you reply before logging in to league and opening up twitch.

“I would say… it took you longer than I expected,” he replies honestly. “Ah, my viewers are getting ready to leave me for yours… they just said so in chat.”

“Your days of having a high view count is over,” you joke as you get ready to go live. You set up your twitch stream and check your mic and audio.

“Cheonsa is back~” Bang shouts while coming in with Wolf. They brought back some food with them and they stand behind you. You click to go live while your computer begins downloading the new patches. Bang and Wolf stand behind you, as they see your view count kick off.

“Oppa, I’m hurt. Did you think I wasn’t? I wouldn’t do that to Jaewan-oppa,” you answer. You tilt your head back and offer a sweet smile that was nothing but sarcastic. Bang flicks your head and walks away.

“How do you feel?” Wolf asks.

“I think I’ll manage,” you answer him. The whole scenario is dejavu for you, and even more so when he goes to pat your head.

 

_It was the first time you and Daniel actually went out when he came over. Usually, you stay home because he drew too much attention. However, after not seeing you for a while, he showed up early to your house on a rare day off, for both you and him, with tickets to Busan. You were a bit hesitant to go, but decided ultimately to go for it. He already brought the tickets, saying no would be rude. Besides, your original plans for today were laundry and a bit of housekeeping. It wasn’t that important. It could wait._

_About an hour or so later, you guys were catching the first direct bullet train to Busan. He brought tickets to an exclusive cabin on board, and made sure not to stand out. Once on board, you fell asleep soon after since no morning coffee was provided. Daniel didn’t mind at all either, he fell asleep a bit after that, or so you thought. The two of you woke up due to the next passengers whose seats were the ones you were occupying. The two of you tried not to laugh as you grabbed your bags and quickly walked off the train and onto the platform._

_“They were so confused,” you laughed as he pulls his hat over his hair._

_“I didn’t even realize I fell asleep. I was too busy watching…” his voice trails off before grabbing your wrist and dragging you to a food stand right outside the station. Daniel turns around and you look around. Since this was your first time in Busan, you wondered if it was similar or different to Seoul. “You have to try this.”_

_“What is it?” you question as Daniel stands next to you watching the street. He blows on what looks like soggy loaf on a stick before handing it over to you._

_“Try it. I mentioned it the other day and you said you haven’t had it,” he answers. You sniff it and it didn’t smell bad to you. You proceed to then take a small bite of it and chew it cautiously before turning to him._

_“This is actually really good.” You quickly take a bigger bite and he chuckles, happy that you liked it. “What is it?”_

_“Eomuk (Fish cakes)” he answers as he takes a bite from the one in his other hand._

_“Most of the time we eat out, we don’t eat at food carts. Can I have another?” you ask him as he nod._

_“Go for it. I’m paying since I dragged you along,” he answers. You turn to the ahjumma behind the two of you.to grab two more. She smiles at you, happy to see the two of you coming back for seconds._

_“You have such a sweet and handsome boyfriend,” the ahjumma tells you. You shake your head. “You two are such a cute couple.”_

_“Wait. No-“_

_“Thank you. She gets shy around people when they give out complements,” Daniel answers from behind as he rest his head on yours. He hands the ahjumma who runs the stand some more money before grabbing two more eomuk and grabbing your hand. “If you’re still here by the time we leave, we’ll definitely swing by for more.”_

_“You two have fun,” she says. Daniel smiles before bowing politely. He grabs your hand, wrapping his long fingers around your own and heads down the empty street. You were still baffled by the situation that just happened. He quickly eats his fishcake before throwing it away and a nearby trashcan._

_“Why did you lie to that ahjumma?” you question once you were halfway down the street. The two of you make a turn, you just let Daniel lead the way since he knew the area better than you. He turns around, offering you a soft smile showing his two front teeth. He gently pats your head._

_“Stay close. I don’t want you to get lost,” he says while not answering your question. You scoff._

_“I think I’ll manage.”_

“(Y/n)?” Wanho asks as you snap back to reality. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I was just thinking about something,” you reply before accepting his invite to the game. Your queue time didn’t take long since you both went fill. You got assigned top while Wanho goes in the Jungle. Instantly you get a notification of a donation still following the same ring from last time.

**Blondeknight donated $10**

**_“Are you still upset or sick? Probably not since you’re playing league.”_ **

You scoff, before starring into the camera. You shake your head and ignore the comment trying to focus on champ select. You weren’t going to explain to your viewers what was going on.

**CheonsaIsAnAngel donated $5**

**“Upset? I thought you were sick. Were you upset at your teammates you faked being sick? :(“**

You chuckle, shaking your head. You were going to kill Daniel.

“No, I wasn’t mad at a SKT member. I’m not even upset at all. I am feeling better. Thank you guys for your concerns. If anything serious were to happen, I’d tell you as soon as possible,” you say while the game finally loads in.

 

_“If anything serious were to happen, I’d tell you as soon as possible,” you promise Sehun on the phone. The elder had swung by the apartment on his way to his meeting for his new show on Netflix. Originally, Suho was supposed to be in it, but due to something, you weren’t sure, Sehun decided he would do it. You look over at the food line as Daniel begins to order._

_He had rented a car, and began driving to the outskirts of Busan. You were probably an hour into the trip, but Daniel insisted the two of you stop and get more food. You couldn’t say no. He smiles at you, or you assume he did, the black mask made it hard to tell. So you just give a smile every time he looks over, as if to reassure you weren’t going to run away._

_“How weird that you suddenly have a new friend we don’t know about,” he mumbles as you giggle. Was he jealous?_

_“Oppa, I’ll treat you to milk tea when I get back, but I have to go now,” you say as you see Daniel pay for the food and begins heading back. Sehun mumbles a ‘mm’ and the two of you bid goodbye. Daniel sits across from you, the two of you happy the semester has started so there was hardly anyone at the rest stop._

_“Who were you on the phone with?” he asks._

_“Sehunnie,” you reply with a cheesy grin. “He told me if you did anything to me to call him and he’d be right over.”_

_“Two things.” He points one finger into the sky. “If I were to do anything to you, I’m sure you’d hurt me before Sehun-sunbae has a chance to.” The second finger goes up. “How would he even know where you were? I could ditch your body somewhere.”_

_“Two things.” You mimic his actions while leaning forward, across the table instead. “One, you’re right. I’d totally kick your ass before Sehun got here. Secondly, I share my location with 5 people in the world. One of them is Sehunnie.”_

_“Then who are the others?” he asks while he begins to lean forward. You smirk._

_“That’s a secret,” you slyly say while leaning back into your chair. He chuckles, while crossing his arms over the table._

_“Let me guess. If I’m right, you have to say I’m right,” he responds._

_“Go for it. I don’t think you’d get all of them right though,” you say._

_“Baekhyun-sunbae?” he asks as you shake your head. “What? You don’t share your location with him?”_

_“Nope,” you sang. “I know it’s shocking, but I actually have never shared my location with Baekhyun. He usually just asks me where I’m at.”_

_“Wow, I was way off. Alright… is it another EXO member?” he asks._

_“I’ll tell you this. 2 of them are idols and 2 others aren’t idols,” you say._

_“Xiumin-hyung?” he asks as you laugh._

_“I love Minseok-oppa, I do. But we aren’t that close. What makes you think both of them are Exo members anyways?” you ask. “It could be other artist.”_

_“Is that a hint?” he question. You just shrug, not really wanting to respond._

_“Alright… I’m going to guess one of them speak English,” he says as you nod along. “Is it an NCT member? I remember they were there the following week.”_

_“How did you know that? I stayed in the room,” you say. The lady from the place Daniel brought food from came over to drop it off. You both thank her as she wishes you guys to enjoy your meal. He had brought you the two of you ramen, and you get your chopsticks ready._

_“_ _saw you while you were walking in with them and swung by to say hi,” he explains while in between slurps of ramen. You nod. “Ah, I got it. Taemin-sunbae?”_

_You almost choked._

_“Was I right?” he smirks._

_“Ya!” you shout. You quickly look around realizing you shouted that a bit too loud. Thankfully, everyone was minding their own business. “Why would I share my constant location with Taeminnie?” He visibly frowns and you sigh. You decide to give him a hint to make it easier on you. “One of them is an EXO member and one of them is a SKT member.”_

_“I thought you said they weren’t EXO members.”_

_“I never said that. I said what makes you think both of them are EXO members. That’s what I said,” you reply with a small smile before slurping your own noodles down._

_“Suho-sunbae?”_

_“Mhmm.”_

_“Why?”_

_“Suho-oppa doesn’t really check where I’m at, but he likes knowing that I’m safe. Minseok-oppa says it’s because they don’t have a younger sister that they dolt on me too much. They also spoil me sometimes, especially when it comes to food,” you explain while sliding your empty bowl towards the middle of the table. You give him a smile. “Thanks for lunch.”_

_“Anytime,” he grins back before mimicking your actions._

The sound of Huni slurping his own noodles made you think of how delicious those noodles were. You never realized it, since you had gotten used to eating ramen, but they certainly tasted better there. You wondered why. Was it how she prepared it or was it because of who you were eating with?

Your phone buzzes and you pick it up.

 **National Center:** Do you not want to talk to me anymore?

 **You:** No, I just needed some space to figure things out.

 **National Center:** oh… I swung by your place the other day.

 **You:** Did you? I guess I fell asleep after taking my medicine.

 **National Center:** When will you be home? We finished recording for the day and I want to see you.

You hesitate to answer and set your phone down. Should you even answer? You were too far into this where if you said no, it would look as if you were ignoring him. You phone buzzes against the table again and you look down to see his latest message.

 **National Center:** I miss you

 

_You and Daniel arrive to a small town on the outskirts of Busan. By the time the car finally pulled into your final destination the sun was hanging low to the horizon. You wondered if you were going to make it back for the last bullet train. You assumed yes since you made so many stops on you way here. You looked around since you never really venturing to this side of Korea. The only places you visited were Seoul and the sea. You never traveled this far south before. Daniel continues driving down the main street of the city before pulling over at a small inn._

_“What’s this? Daniel you took me all the way out here for a hotel? Wow, how bold,” you tease him as he chuckles to his sider nervously. He awkwardly scratches the back of his neck before shaking his head._

_“No it’s a small inn that has hot springs. I came here when I was younger once. I always wanted to come back when I was older,” he explains while getting down. You press your lips together before unbuckling your seatbelt, and getting out the car as well. You see his hand extend back. He looks past his shoulder and you roll your eyes. You were helpless against those eyes. They were the same ones that silently pleaded for a serving of seconds._

_You place your hand in his, and he wraps his fingers around your palm. He leads you into the inn, and instantly you were greeted by an older gentlemen with white hairs flacking his facial features. He had round glasses on the bridge of his nose, and a mole on the upper right corner of his mouth._

_“Welcome,” he says. You respectfully bow with Daniel. “What a lovely couple. Will you be passing through for the night?”_

_“Yes, just for the night,” Daniel answers as you stare back at him. Your eyes were widen and he just pretends not to see your expression at all. The old man nods and puts a key on the counter that was between you. He scribbles some things down in his journal._

_“Parking is just around the corner. There’s an entrance there as well. Once you go into the building, the room will be all the way to your left. Hot springs are open till 10, and the closed baths are open till 12,” he explains. Daniel says thanks before dragging you out of the little lobby area and back to the car. What happened to it being a one day trip? Were you lied to? You were lied to. You couldn’t believe the audacity he had to pull this on you. He could even tell you were upset. The way you slammed the car door, and crossed your arms while you sat in the passenger seat waiting for him to get in were definitely signs._

_He gets in and sits there. He licks his lips, and you could only guess that he was trying to figure out what to say. You sigh before turning your head to see him._

_“I never agreed to spend the night here. You said we were going to Busan,” you say._

_“Well, we did go to Busan. But I never said we were staying there for the day. That’s why I asked you to pack a bag,” he explains._

_“I thought you meant ‘pack a bag’ as in bring snacks and water. So I brought chips, gummies, cookies, and a bottle of water,” you reply. He had the nerve to laugh at you and you turn your head to look out the window._

_“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. It’s just… I find it cute that you packed snacks and didn’t think to bring extra clothes in case of something,” he says. “I’ll lend you a shirt. I brought two and they give you robes for the hot springs. So we might need to find you something just for tomorrow.”_

_“That’s another thing. I’ve never been to a hot spring. What am I supposed?”_

_“Bathe in the water, float around in it, let the minerals soak into your skin,” he says while he begin moving the car to the parking lot. He quickly finds a spot and the two of you get out. He grabs both your bags from the trunk and you head inside following the ahjussi’s instructions. The two of you quickly find the room and unlock it with the key he gave you. Despite the exterior looking outdated, the inside of the rooms were lovely._

_“Wow~” you sang out as you walked into the room. You had yet to stay in an ondol, but experiencing it like this was truly breathtaking._

__

_“I know it’s early. But happy birthday,” he says as you turn around. He holds out a small box wrapped in pink paper with white ribbons. You look at him confused, not sure how he knew. You haven’t told him that your birthday was approaching in a couple days, and you weren’t sure if you should tell him. Then it dawns on you. Did he plan all of this for you?_

_You ignored the gift, and wrap your arms around him instead. You knew, culturally, Koreans don’t hug like Westerner’s do. But you didn’t care. No amount of words could describe how you felt right now. He wraps his free hand around your waist. Probably relieved you were happy with everything. He had mumbled something into your hair, barely audible to you, but you swore you heard him say, “I’ve missed you.”_

You stare out the window, watching the rain hit the panel hard. Wondering if you should order in food because you didn’t have enough groceries to cook today. You pondered going to the grocery store and buying food. You also thought about Daniel’s last text. You had yet to respond. The rain started to pick up. You suddenly heard the door knock and lifelessly shuffle your feet towards it.

It wasn’t as if you’d expect him. But, as always, Daniel does what he wants. So it didn’t come as a complete surprise when you opened the door and saw him standing there. Rain dripping down from his jawline. You didn’t understand how attractive it was for his newly-done, light brown hair to stick to his skin. His eyes met yours, and you could only offer a meek smile.

 

_You came back first from the baths. You didn’t mind trying new things. However, it did make you uncomfortable. You sat in front of the mirror, towel drying your hair for the night. You were wearing an oversized t-shirt Daniel had in his bag. You didn’t mind wearing your clothes two days in a row, so all you needed was a t-shirt to sleep in. You hear the door unlock behind you and turn your head slightly to check if it was who you thought it was._

_Daniel comes through the door with his robe untied. He’s wearing his pajama bottoms, but that’s it. You were wearing the shirt he was supposed to be wearing. Your eyes meet and he offers you a meek smile as he approaches you. He crouches down to your level. Daniel gently grabs the towel from your hands and begins drying your hair for you._

_“I can do that,” you complain._

_“Consider this another birthday gift,” he replies. You suddenly turn around suddenly and startle him to where he falls back. You laugh, and he grabs your hand pulling you down with him onto the floor. You stare at him and he stares back before you both burst into laughter._

_“Beautiful,” he says. You give him a confused look but he shakes his hand as if he didn’t mean it. “I mean the room.”_

“Beautiful,” he mumbles as he walks into your apartment, closing the door behind him. He pulls you into a tight embrace. You couldn’t even move to hug him back, or let alone breathe. His body completely swallowed you up, but it felt nice. It felt as if he was protecting you from everything that happened in these past couple days. “I’ve missed you. Not talking to you was hard, not seeing was harder, and not knowing how you were was the hardest.”

“You make it sound as if I died,” you manage to say while pulling back a bit. “You’re going to squeeze the air out of me if you don’t stop.”

“I’m sorry if I hurt you. It wasn’t my intention. I promise. I promise, (y/n), I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he whispers. Daniel’s tight hug never gave up on you and you finally had enough room to wrap your arms around him. You feel him startled by your hands touching his back, and your cheek resting on his shoulder.

“I know… I know it wasn’t your intention. I wasn’t hurt. I promise,” you whisper back. “But there are some things I need to tell you.”

Daniel pulls away, his eyes lingering in yours. You grab his hand and you lead him to the couch. You knew you needed to stop this. Whatever _this_ was, needed to be put to an end. You wanted to continue seeing him, without _seeing_ him in that way. In the way your heartbeat would pick up when he texted you he was 2 mins away. In the way you managed to laugh at all his jokes, even the ones that weren’t funny. The way you would pass by Wanna One’s promotion posters and smile when you saw Daniel’s grin. The way you secretly paid more attention to his name even if I was just the news that was mentioning it.

He sits down, and you sit across from him. You play with his fingers, like the countless times you did when you would watch tv but secretly wanted his attention without saying words. He would always turn down the volume, and Daniel would pat his lap so you could lay your head down and talk. It was as if the two of you fit together like puzzle pieces.

“I think we should stop,” you say without meeting his eyes. You couldn’t. You knew how much pain he would be in just by saying those words. “Whatever, this is, we should stop. I don’t want you coming over anymore.”

“Why?” he asks. He tries holding your hand and you pull away. There were too many answers for that questions, but you had only one to give back. “Because of what happened last time? (Y/n), whatever you think-“

“I know. I know you’re not the type of person who would do that with someone and dip. However, things like this shouldn’t happen between people like us. I told you, I don’t want to get into another scandal, and we’ve been careful so far. Our luck will eventually run out,” you explain.

 

_“Do you think our luck will run out?” you ask Daniel as you lay down on the mat. You pull the blanket up and turn toward Daniel. Even though the room was dark, you could still make out his outline. He turns towards you, propping his head up on our arm. “I mean, this whole trip today was out of pure luck. Students were back in school, no one recognized you because everyone we saw were older folks. But what about next time?”_

_“Well, next time we’ll be even more careful,” he explains. You snuggle in further into the blanket. Even though the floors were heated, you weren’t used to the fall weather of Korea yet. “I think we can make our luck last as long as we can.”_

_“What do you think will happen if we get exposed? What do we say? We’re just friends?”_

_“I’ll tell them my truth if you tell them yours,” he expresses. He lifts his blanket up and pats the open space. “If you’re cold, you should just tell me.”_

_“I’m saving myself for marriage,” you reply while turning your back to him._

_“We’ve talked about your ex. I know that’s a lie,” he teases. You get up and throw the pillow at him. When you moved to Korea, you broke up with your boyfriend who wouldn’t want to come with you. You had dated him for almost three years, and breaking up with him was tough on you. You wanted to stay, but you also wanted to see how far you could go with your own abilities. Of course it was selfish, but you wanted to see your own set of skills._

_“Don’t talk to me, I’m going to bed,” you say as you lay back down, throwing the blanket over you. However, Daniel is having none of that as he lifts your blanket up and wraps a hand around your waist. He pulls you against his body. “Ya!”_

_“I’m cold,” he complains._

_“Then get another blanket!”_

_“I wouldn’t be so cold if someone wasn’t wearing my shirt,” he mumbles. He got you. You click your tongue in annoyance and turn your chin to see him out of the corner of your eyes._

_“If you try anything, I’m calling the police for sexual harassment,” you warn. He chuckles and you can feel his chest vibrate from his back._

_“Is the police Suho-sunbae and Sehun-sunbae?” he asks._

_“You bet your ass they’re also bringing Jungkook-oppa,” you warn._

_“I won’t do anything. I promise,” he swears while snuggling into you further. “I don’t think our luck will run out. I’ll make sure of it.”_

“Why don’t you sound sincere?” he asks.

“What do you mean?” you question. You finally meet his eyes and he seems to be looking for answers. The answer you want to give him but can’t.

“If you need time to sort this out, the I understand. But I won’t give you up that easily,” he says.

“Daniel, are you not listening?” you ask. He shakes his head, running a hand through his damp hair.

“No, because I know you as well. I know who you are and what you want. I pay attention to everything you say and the way you say it. Why do you think that it?” You are taken aback. His sudden boldness throws you off. You thought he we would just give it up and move on like it was no big deal. But apparently it was.

“If you think it’s because I’ll tell your secrets to someone else, I won’t. I promise,” you say.

“You can be so slow sometimes,” he scoffs. He gets up. You don’t understand what’s happening anymore. Instead he looks at your neck and just nods. Your hand reaches up, and you remember about the gift he gave you when you went out on your trip. You haven’t taken it off since then, and completely forgot it was there to begin with.

 

_“Let me put it on you,” he says as you get back from changing into your old clothes. You tilt your head, and he holds up the present from yesterday. “Please?”_

_“If it’s something super expensive, you’re returning it.”_

_“But it’s for your birthday. It should be okay, right?” he tries to sway you and you couldn’t help but think what on earth did he get you for him to say that. “Close your eyes.”_

_You do as you’re told, and he gently turns you around. Daniel moves your hair to the side. He turns you back around, and you open your eyes. He gives you a smile._

_“Does it look good?” you ask him._

_“It looks perfect,” he says as he holds up his phone for a picture. You smile and he snaps the photo. Daniel shows you right away. The necklace he gave you was a simple one with just a key on it. You smiled, loving the simplicity of it._

__

_“Thank you,” you say. He pulls something from underneath his shirt and he too had a necklace, but his had a lock on it._

_“A token of all the memories we made,” he explains. “Never take it off, and I’ll never take mine off. Even when I’m performing. Got it?”_

_“Got it.”_

“When you want to tell me what’s going on, I’ll come over. But I can’t give up on what we have. Not a chance,” he says. He pulls his necklace out, and unhooks it from the back. “Hold onto this until you have answers for me. I’ll be back for it.”

You were lost for words as he left, not even saying any words of goodbye. All you could do is stare at the necklace in your hand and ponder on how badly did you hurt him. All you could do was just that.


	9. Words I Couldn't Sa

You tried figuring things out by yourself. You went to the clubhouse, even though everyone who was a regular member went to worlds. You could’ve gone as well, for support, but you didn’t want to burden the coaches or members in case something were to happen. You were going to come out later and only stay a couple days. Besides, you had an appointment with your doctor to go over treatment plans and facilities. Decisions needed to be made, and quickly.

You sat in the hospital waiting area quietly. You looked around, and fiddled with your phone. You didn’t want to seem to awkward, but it seemed like that’s all you could be. Awkward. Baekhyun said he would accompany you if you truly needed him to, but his comeback date was approaching, and you couldn’t ask him for such a thing.

Here you were, bummed out on the fact you were alone in Korea since all the other members were at worlds. The only one who couldn’t go was Effort, and that was because he was a minor. You leaned back in your chair, and look over at the entrance of the hospital. As if on cue, the doors open and a familiar figure walked in. The way the black shirt hugged his biceps, and his broad shoulders filling it in perfect. Even though you couldn’t see his face because of the black cap and mask, you could easily tell it was Daniel. You hold up the pamphlet you had in your hand. There weren’t many people who would have a doctor’s appointment this early in the morning, but out of all the people in Seoul, of course Daniel had to be here.

You peak over the pamphlet to see his manager talking to one of the nurses. She nods before leading the duo away from the counter, and towards another room. You sigh after he’s out of your vision and slowly lower the pamphlet. Suddenly, a stranger sits next to you, and you look over. He had sunglasses on and a fellow black hat on. You saw three little moles on his cheek and you tilt your head. You wondered why he looked familiar, but didn’t know why.

“I was told to wait here,” he says.

“Me too,” you reply before the both of you look forward.

“I actually know you,” he whispers. You give him a look before he smiles. He lifts his sunglasses, and you recognize that face. How you knew Seongwoo was through Eunwoo. You met Eunwoo through Johnny when went onto his broadcast of NCT Night Night. You went over to the studio that night since you were up and in the area, and because Johnny messages you wanting some snacks. You two actually went to the same middle school when your parents lived in Chicago, but you moved to LA soon after. But meeting him again, knowing but not knowing each other was super awkward.

“Ong? Seongwoo?” you say as he holds up his finger for you to be quiet. You apologize before you playfully hit him. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re on our way to a schedule but we had to stop and get a checkup for Niel-ah’s hand,” he explains. You nod your head completely forgetting that fact that you met several people in Wannaonce prior to Produce101.

“That’s right, you are a part of Wanna One,” you say.

“I love how you know that, but you forget so quickly,” he sighs. You press your lips together not sure how to react before turning to him.

“Sorry,” you say with a smile. He laughs it off before patting your back. He looks around, as if he was looking for someone in particular. You assume it’s his manager or perhaps Daniel he’s waiting for.

“What are you doing here anyways, (y/n)? Are you sick?” he asks while turning his attention back to you.

“Oh…” you say. You completely forgot you two were at a hospital. “I am, well no I’m not. It’s complicated. I found out I was sick, but then I got better? Sort of? I’m here for a checkup.”

“You could’ve just said you were here for a checkup,” he says.

“Well that’s what I’m here for.”

“Is that the reason why you aren’t at worlds? It’s all over social media,” he says.

“Seriously?” you reply. He nods while pulling out his phone. He opens up the browser and types in your name followed with ‘worlds 2017.’ Sure enough, dozens of articles are posted on reasons you couldn’t attend. On reddit, you were at the top of the list with multiple theories on why you weren’t there. “Well this can’t be good.”

“You should post something, or say something,” he tells you honestly before putting his phone away. You sigh before you hear your name called by the nurse. “Do you want me to go with you? Niel-ah might be here for a while.”

“No, it’s okay. I don’t want them to come out and you be missing. It’s just a checkup,” you smile. Ong frowns and you get up from your chair. “When you aren’t too busy we should catch up. We could go for drink with-“

“(L/n)-ssi?” the nurse repeats and you wave goodbye to Ong before following the nurse back into the doctor’s office. The air felt a bit stale. The doctor from the previous time was already sitting in his chair typing away at his computer. You sat down and the doctor looks at you, he looks at the nurse to give the of you some alone time, and she exits the room after bowing respectfully.

“We took another blood sample, and we’ll get the results back tomorrow. But I did want to talk to you about treatments. Have you thought about it?” he asks in English. You nod.

“At the end of the day, Chemotherapy is my best option isn’t it?” you ask.

“Every patient is different, radiation therapy may work just as well or even better than Chemotherapy. It all depends on how the cancer cells respond. There are however, different clinics and treatment plans moving forward. I’m assuming you looked at all of them?”

“Yeah. I liked one of the places, it’s in Australia,” you say while he nods. He leans back in his chair, before pulling up the website. The clinic was called The Genesis Clinic, and he pulls up some more info on them.

“I do have to warn you, you may want to look for another clinic. I do know one of the doctors down there, and almost all of their Clinics are full, or they have a waitlist.” You press your lips together and then sigh. Of course they were. But you didn’t want to go back to the states. You couldn’t. The doctor studies your face for a bit before nodding once more. “I’ll call up my friend down there. See if he can arrange something for you. I do know you are a streamer, and being away for a long time can impact your career.”

“How do you know that?” you respond. He smiles as he turns one of the picture frames on his desk towards you. It showed him and a young man, probably no older than 13 on there.

“My daughter likes talking to you, or should I say my son. He says you helped him understand who he was despite being born in the wrong body. At first I couldn’t believe him, but she showed me a video of you explaining acceptance begins with yourself. It was a long process, but he’s happy living his life as a boy. Which is why, when Nurse Choi asked around to see if a doctor was available, I didn’t hesitate to accept.”

“Thank you,” you say. You bow your head, not sure how to react. That video was made because you were hurt, and you were being hurt by someone you didn’t think was possible.

 

_You snuck into the house, as quiet as a mouse, not trying to wake anyone up. You had snuck out earlier that night from your window to go to the internet café. The problem was getting back in. You could easily drop from the second floor to the ground because of how the tree was positioned. But you couldn’t climb back up it since they cut off the lower branches._

_You slowly closed the front door, and turn to head up the stairs before you hear your mother clear her throat from the chair that was tucked into the corner of the atrium. You were so obviously in trouble. You didn’t even try explaining yourself as you turned on the lights. You throw your bag onto the ground, and turn to face her._

_“Where have you been? Did you forget you had a competition tomorrow?” she asks you as you scratch the back of your head. “Unbelievable, (y/n), you’re truly unbelievable.”_

_“I’m sorry. I’ll go straight to bed,” you say. Your mother gets up, and you see her pick up the box sitting on the round table next to the chair. She flips the box over and dumps out your entire computer setup. “What are you doing?! Mom!”_

_“Do you think I’m stupid, (y/n)? Do you don’t think I hear you when I walk by. I know you aren’t doing homework all day when you aren’t at practice. You forget, that I allow you to have things like this. I allow you to play your games, but to sneak and play them? I’m not a fool. That’s why I trimmed the trees, hoping to keep you in. But you bluntly refuse to do as you’re told.” She grabs the vase full of flowers and throws the flowers out and dumps water all over your electronics. You were stunned. You had everything saved onto their. Games you were working on with your friends, to games you played, to games they made, they were all on there._

_“Are you insane?” you whisper._

_“You must be to talk to me like that,” you mother says back._

_“No wonder why dad left you,” you mumble. Your mother hears you and instantly walks over to you. She raises your hand and slaps you with enough force to know you to the ground. You knew you deserved that, but you didn’t care. You weren’t going to stop. “That’s exactly why he left you. Because you couldn’t control him. You refuse to accept anyone who differs from your morals or your ideals.”_

_“(Y/n) go to your room this instant!” she yells at you. You got up, grabbing your bag in the process, and shake your head._

_“No. I won’t. I won’t be going to the competition tomorrow either. In fact, I won’t be doing anything you tell me anymore,” you explain. She looks at you as if you were spewing absolute nonsense. “I quit.”_

_“You can’t quit on me. I’m your mother. I have full legal custody of you,” she warns._

_“Mom, did you forget? I turned 18 a month ago. You don’t have any sort of custody over me. So I quit being your daughter. Find someone else to control,” you say while reaching for the door._

_“If you leave, whether you come back crawling or dying, I won’t open the door for you,” she warns._

_“It’s not like you ever opened the door for me anyways. You were never home and you’re never around. The only times you act like you care is when it has to do with ballet,” you say before walking out with nothing more than the clothes on your back._

That was the last time you talked to your mom. You knew she was keeping tabs on you, she did the same thing with your dad. When she heard he was getting a second divorce she celebrated by throwing a party. If she heard you were in the states, there’s no doubt in your mind she would find you. So going back to the states wasn’t an option, you made sure of it. You didn’t want anything to do with her, and so you posted the video. Shortly after finding a place to live, you explained to the whole internet why accepting who you are is more important than what others think of you. Soon, you began playing pro gaming with your friends and the rest became history.

You look out the window of the train. You were now your way home. You slid your phone out of you back pocket to check for any new messages. But there was no messages from any of the boys, or SKT members, and more importantly Daniel. What were you expecting? You knew you were in the wrong, you knew you hurt him, but wasn’t it for the best? You put your phone in you back pocket before getting up, getting ready to exit the train.

 _‘Maybe this train will derail and end my life so I don’t have to do this,’_ you thought to yourself. You knew it wasn’t even that big of a deal, but you couldn’t help but be a little over dramatic about it. The train slows to a stop and you exit off into the subway, following the heard of people going in your general direction.

Your phone vibrates and you whip it out as fast as you could.

 **Bacon:** I called you but it didn’t go through. How was your doctor appointment?

 **You:** Oh, I was in the subway. It went well… I think I’ll go to a clinic to get treatment.

 **Bacon:** One here in Korea right? Or will you go back to the states?

 **You:** Oh… I don’t know yet…

You put your phone away. Baekhyun was very much like an older brother to you, and being an only child made his presence that much more of an older brother. You knew he would be hurt if you told him you didn’t want to stay in Korea to get treated, but you also didn’t want to make him feel guilty for not being able to be there as well.

Your phone starts to buzz and you look down and see the name. You instantly pick up.

“Annyeong~” you smile into the phone as you hear the soft chuckle.

“傻瓜 (Shǎguā),” Lay says into the phone. “I heard you were feeling down from Baekhyun. Why are you in Korea? I thought you would be in China. I was planning to take you out to some places.”

“I just had some stuff to do. I will be flying out though for group stages later this wek, but I won’t be staying for the whole worlds tournament,” you explain as you walk down the street. “I still have to buy my ticket and pack. Oppa, there is too much to do.”

“I’ll buy you a ticket if you leave tonight,” he offers.

“They’re expecting me in almost a week. I shouldn’t change the plan,” you say.

“Then you can stay with me for a week at the hotel. I get lonely when it’s just me,” he complains. You press your lips together. Maybe you needed some time away from all this. You knew it was never a good idea, but for some reason you couldn’t stop yourself from saying yes.

 

~Later that night~

 

You exit customs and declaration and see Yixing holding a sign with your name on it. He’s wearing all black; black shoes, black jeans, a black shirt, a black bomber jacket, a black face mask, a black cap, and black sunglasses. You stare at him motioning for him to take off his sunglasses but her just responds by throwing up a piece sign. You slide your suitcase to him in an over-the-top fashion. He laughs, catching it with one of his hands before walking over to you. He slings an arm around your shoulder, and you slide an arm around his waist.

            “你好(Nǐ hǎo),” he says.

“你好(Nǐ hǎo),” you reply as the two of you head to the car he had waiting outside. This time it was a black dodge challenger and you lean your head up to look over at him. “So this is the car you decided to rent while you were here?”

“Nope, this is the car I decided to rent while you were here,” he corrects you. He opens the door and you slide into the passenger seat. Lay quickly puts the suitcase in the trunk of the car before hopping in himself. “So when do you have to be at worlds?”

“I’ll only be there for the group stage. They play most of their games on 15th. They start at noon. They also played their first game today around 7:30 against Cloud 9,” you inform him while you connected your iPhone to the Bluetooth.

“Did they win?” Lay asks as you give him a smirk.

“Yes.” You beamed a smile. “They won. It was very nice. I congratulated them already. They play a game tomorrow, and the next day. But I promised them I’ll be there the 15th and for  finals.”

“Good, because I want you here for my showcase. It’s on the 12th,” Lay says.

“Ya! I told you to tell me when it was being released,” you say. He chuckled lightly. “Lay-oppa!”

“I told you to call me Yixing, how many times?” he suddenly gets serious as you freeze. You click your tongue and roll your eyes.

“To me you’ll be Lay-oppa. I can call you sheep-oppa if you want,” you offer.

“No thank you,” he replies as you laugh. “Are you hungry? Should we order room service when we get back? Or do you want to pick up some food on the way there?”

“I want room service. I’m getting a steak.”

“You carnivor.”

“I eat vegetables too. I’m not like Dan-“ you pause. Lay looks over at you and you look out the window.

“Dan?” he asks waiting for the rest of his name.

“It’s just Dan…” you mumble. He pulls over onto the side of the road and puts the car’s hazards on.

“Is something wrong? Who is he? Did he hurt you?” he asks.

“No. Oppa, he didn’t hurt me. It’s the other way around if anything…” you sigh, throwing your body back into the seat of the car. “I feel so bad. Oppa, I really hurt him.”

“Why did you hurt him?” You turn to him as you play with your thumbs, never fixing that stupid habit of fidgeting. Lay puts a hand over yours, and squeezes it. “You don’t have to tell me unless you want to. Let’s go home. We can even rent movies-on-demand.”

“Okay,” you reply softly.

“But I will tell you one thing,” he says while turning the hazards off and trying to merge back onto the high way. “If it hurt you, to hurt him, then it must hurt you more to not be with him.”

You didn’t say anything, but decided to play _Nonfiction_ by K.Will. For some reason, it was really fitting the mood right now. If anything, they were all the right words you couldn’t say to Daniel, not because you didn’t know how. More of, you didn’t know if you should.

 

“Happy birthday to you~” you sang while carrying in a piece of cake into Lay’s bedroom. After you got back, the two of you ate dinner and Lay managed to take your mind off things. You ended up watching a Chinese movie, despite Lay insisting to watch a Korean one because your Chinese was terribly bad. You were stubborn.

Of course, Lay fell asleep during the movie. You quietly turned it off, and brought over some blankets and pillows for him to sleep comfortably for a bit. You didn’t even try waking him up, you knew he was knocked out. So instead, you looked up bakeries on your phone that were still open late. You found one and decided to sneak out. You went over to the one you had mapped, taking an uber for the convenience and brought a small cake they had on display. You brought some candles there as well and quickly returned back to the hotel.

“Happy birthday to you~” you sang again and saw him getting up slowly, not sure what was going on. You laugh as you sat on the coffee table that was in front of him. “Happy birthday to Yixing-oppa, happy birthday to you.”

He laughs, covering his face from embarrassment. Not sure how to take it. You offer a smile and he quickly blows out his candles.

“When did you go get this?” he asks.

“Right now,” you reply honestly. His phone begins to go off and you see it’s Suho trying to video call him. He composes himself before answering the phone. “Hyung.”

“Happy birthday!” he shouts with some other members. Lay chuckles and motions for you to come sit next to him. You shake your head, and he grabs your arm trying to pull you into the camera frame.

“Ya, do you have someone over? Is it a girl?” Chen asks.

“Hyung, are you seeing someone now?” Kai asks.

“Of course they would spend his birthday together. What a good girlfriend, did she buy you a cake?” Chanyeol exclaims.

“Wah… (y/n) should take notes. This is why she’s single,” Baekhyun adds on.

“This is my girlfriend,” Lay jokes while pulling you to sit beside him.

“Yah… (y/n) what are you doing there?” Baek shouts from the back. You roll your eyes.

“Oppa! I heard you say this is why I’m single! What about you?” you ask Baekhyun.

“I’m sensitive, don’t bring that up,” he replies as some other members laugh.

“I didn’t know you were with him. How nice, now Lay won’t spend his birthday alone,” Xiumin moves on.

“Oh, I paid for her to come out here since she was coming to China later this week for SKT,” Lay explains.

“Are you extorting Yixing?” Suho asks you.

“I’m not. I told him I would visit him when I got here, but he insisted and then his manager called me saying there was a ticket under my name ready for me at the airport. You know how stressful it is to pack a carry-on for a flight that leaves within 2 hours? Plus I still had to get there, and go through security. I don’t even think I packed anything I needed,” you complain.

“But you made it,” Lay says. You nod.

“Will you be okay?” Kai ask. You knew what he was referring to and you nod. Kyungsoo looks between the two of you before looking over at Baekhyun.

“Why wouldn’t she be okay?” Kyungsoo asks.

“Yeah, she’s with Yixing-hyung,” Chen pitches in.

“Probably cause she’s bad with directions and will get lost,” Sehun offers an explanation.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her,” Lay says.

“Hyung, how are you spending your birthday?” Chanyeol asks.

“Maybe we’ll go out and get dinner somewhere nice? I wanted to go to Changsha since my family is there,” Lay says. He ponders the thought but shakes his head. You get up from the couch and go to grab the forks and plates they gave you with the cake. “I’m not sure, since getting there and back is a long trip.”

“Well whatever you have to do, have fun,” Xiumin says.

“Well let’s say goodbye to Yixing so he can go to bed,” Suho says. “Once again, happy birthday Yixing-ah~”

“Bye~” they also say in disunion while waving at Lay. Lay chuckles and waves back before he hangs up. You walk back over.

“So, should we eat the cake now or later?” you ask him.

“Cake should never be eaten later,” he replies.

 

The week went by fast after celebrating his birthday. You spent that day in Hong Kong and after that you were spending most of the day running around with Lay to his schedules. You went to all the wardrobe checks, the venue checks, hair and makeup appointments, the concert run-through the night before the showcase, the actual show case, and whatever other things he had to do.

Now it was time for you to fly out to Wuhan from Beijing. He was leaving later that day to Shanghai since he had a meet in a couple of days as well. The two of you were in the car, riding to the airport, jamming out to your playlist. Lay suddenly turns down the music and pulls over on the side of the road. You watch him turn on his hazards and lean back in his chair, leaving one hand on the wheel.

“I want you to listen. Okay?” he says as you nod. “I want you to be happy, but I’m worried.”

“Is this about what I said when I got here?” you ask. Lay nods before holding onto your hand.

“I’m worried about you. I can hear you at night. Whether it’s because you’re walking around because you can’t sleep, or trying to cry as silent as possible, I hear it all. It hurts me knowing that you’re hurting in more ways than one. Not only that but… I picked up your phone when you went to the bathroom one time. They were calling from the Genesis Clinic and I had to google it to figure out what is was. (Y/n), I need you to be honest with me. What is going on?” he asks while tears began to form in your eyes. So you let it all out.

“I met a guy. He helped me out and then we started talking. I told you about that bet. About trading one secret for another, so I did it with him because I thought it was harmless. I ended up liking him. Yixing-oppa. I ended up liking him more than I thought was possible. Everything feels right with him, you know? I want to be with him, and spend time with him. I feel excited when he comes over, and when we watch shows together. I wasn’t even mad when he took me to Busan unexpectedly. He just makes me feel alive” you explain. “He ended up staying the night, and we ended up doing things. He left early the next morning because of work.

“Then Baekhyun and Nini came over and saw bruising on my neck, and not like ‘oh, you had a guy over.’ It looked like someone tried to hurt me. So I went to the hospital, and the doctor told us I had cancer. That I had leukemia. And I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want him to go through anything because of me. So I thought maybe if I told him we should stop because it was a bad idea, but he knew something was up. He said he’d wait for me to tell the truth, but I can’t tell him the truth. Because there is nothing he could do that would change anything,” you blurt out. At this point you were sobbing and Lay did his best to comfort you. He pulls you in close, and pets the top of your head. He tries his best to calm you down and just lets you cry your heart out. All these feelings and thoughts you had just exploded, and you never wanted to tell anyone how you truly felt.

“It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay,” he whispers into your ear. You pull back, wiping the tears from your eyes. He gives you a second to get yourself together before he speaks again. “I think… you truly care about him. If you’re putting his well-being in front of yours it shows you care about him. I think you truly want him to be happy, and I think more importantly you truly love him. Whoever this Dan guy is, he makes you want to do things you didn’t know you wanted to do.”

“He does, like whatever he says he wants to do, I want to be there with him,” you agree.

“I think sometimes it’s better to follow your heart and not follow your thoughts. If you play safe for too long, you’ll always end up coming up short. This time… run to him. (y/n), follow your heart,” he repeats. Lay squeezes your hand once again, as if to give you a bit of his strength. You give him a small smile. When you got back to Korea you were going to face this head on.


	10. Fates Meant to Cross

You land in Korea. SKT were leaving to the quarterfinals arena, and as much as they wanted you to stay you told them why you couldn’t. They were shocked. A bit hurt you kept it from them, but you explained that you wanted time to think things through. The coaches said once you recovered, they would do everything in their power to give you another contract. You asked them to keep it a secret since you didn’t want the whole world knowing your business. They gave you their word, and you said you’d wait for them to bring home the trophy before you left.

You remember Huni promising that they’d win it for you while trying his best not to cry. You told him to stop overextending without vision and it’ll be possible for them. They wished you a fast recovery and to call them if you ever needing anything. You told them to call you if they ever miss your voice. They said you owed them a meal before leaving, and you promised you would treat them.

You receive a text message as soon as you exit the airport, heading over to the uber that was already waiting for you.

 **Bacon:** Who’s picking you up?

 **You:** I got an uber since you guys were busy

 **Bacon:** I could’ve picked you up

 **You:** I’m fully capable of getting home from the airport.

 **Bacon:** What are your plans for tomorrow?

 **You:** Mark wants me to go with him to the festival so I can help him with his homework. :) Cause I’m a good friend and I have some college experience

 **Bacon:** … right. Well get some rest and I’ll let you know when I’m free.

You locked your phone before throwing it in your purse. You were going to confront Daniel head on. You wouldn’t chicken out.

 

Mark groans, getting frustrated at trying to understand the concept. You try offering condolences as something flew past your head. The room was chaos as NCT members were playing around before their scheduled performance.

“NCT 127, be on standby, recording will be starting soon,” the staff says. Mark gets up, putting his stuff in his bag before checking his hair and makeup one more time.

“Noona, what will you do while I’m gone?” he asks.

“I’ll walk around for a bit,” you say.

“Will you get in trouble with security again?” Taeyong teases you as he tries shuffling the members out of the room.

“Again? What happened?” Winwin asks. You give Taeyong an annoyed look before shaking your head.

“Nothing happened. Baekhyun-oppa made it seem like a big deal. I promise I’ll wear my badge this time,” you say holding up the plastic card that was hanging from your neck. It had staff written on it, but ‘staff’ was a loose term.

“You going to go see Eunwoo?” Johnny asks.

“Yeah, I might go see Jackson. Since he heard I went to Hong Kong, he’s been blowing up my phone asking me what I liked about it. So I’ll do that too,” you say.

“Don’t get in trouble again,” Taeyong calls out as you nod again. In reality, you weren’t going to go there directly. You were going to swing by Wanna One’s room and try talking to Daniel. You even brought his necklace and planned exactly what you were going to say. After about a minute of waiting, you headed out.

You walked down the hall and headed to where you thought you remember seeing the sign on the door. You found the door, and you stood at it. Your heart was beating so fast you could hear the rhythm in your ears. You wipe your palms on you shirt, trying to keep your nerves under wraps.

“What are you going to do about (y/n)?” you hear someone say. You froze. Did you hear wrong?

“Jisung-hyung… I don’t know. I think I messed up,” you hear Daniel admit.

“Well do you want her around?” Jisung says. You thought you should leave, this wasn’t a conversation you should be listening into, but you wanted to hear his response.

“No, hyung. I don’t want her around,” Daniel says. You hear him sigh deeply and you feel your heart sink. Was your whole opinion about Daniel wrong? Were you just something to relieve his stress on?

“(Y/n)!” you hear Jackson shout as he jumps on you. You shriek before the two of you fall to the ground.

“Hyung! You shouldn’t tackle people!” Bambam says as Jackson laughs. The door opens and you see Daniel looking at you with a shocked expression.

“(y/n)? What are you doing here?” he asks.

“Oh? How do you two know each other?” Jackson asks while helping you up after he, himself, gets up from the ground.

“We don’t,” you say. Daniel gives you a confused look and Jackson looks between the two of you. “I wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who doesn’t want me around.”

It was after you said those word, Daniel understood what was happening. You overheard what he was talking about with Jisung. The expression on his face changes from that of confusion to concern.

“Let me explain,” he says.

“Oppa. Let me tell you about Hong Kong,” you wrap an arm around Jackson’s own, completely ignoring Daniel. Bambam gives you a look, but Jackson understands the situation and starts to lead the two of you away. “Yixing-oppa and I went there before Beijing for his showcase.”

“(Y/n)!” Daniel shouts.

“Wanna One, be on standby,” a staff member says. The staff member lightly pulls on Daniel to follow him. Daniel looks between you and the staff member before ultimately pulls him into the room to gather the rest of the members.

“(Y/n), what was that about?” Jackson asks as once the three of you were out of earshot.

“Nothing. He thinks he knows me, but in reality it’s me who doesn’t know him,” you respond. Bambam pats your mid back.

“His lost. You’re amazing,” he gives you a smile. Screw Daniel, screw all the sweet promises he said, and screw all the memories you made. If you were nothing more than something for him to waste his time on, then clearly you were completely wrong. You wish closing the door on you’re feeling about him were as easy as closing the door when he left for the night. But the best cure for all of this, is very simple. In order to get over someone, you should get under someone.

 

~Next Night~

 

You blocked Daniel on everything you could possibly think of. Even the stupid Wanna One’s official account on Instagram. You zip up your leather black miniskirt, and look at yourself in the mirror. You ran a hand through your thick curls. You were wearing a halter crop trop that had crisscross cutouts in the back. Your pleated skirt fitted your hips carefully to expose your long legs that only seemed longer with the heels you had on. Black heels that lace up you’re your ankle before being tied to the back. Of course you were wearing all black. There was no other option. You felt as if the line: ‘The old Taylor Swift can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Cause she’s dead’ from Taylor Swift’s _Look at What You Made Me Do_ fit you perfectly right now.

         

                   

You didn’t want to remember Daniel, even if it was for an hour. Hell, since you’ve last saw him it was all you could think about. You just couldn’t believe it. The countless nights staying up and talking, the countless times he came over unexpectedly, the countless times he never failed to make you smile meant nothing to him. You were the only one who saw differently. It was frustrating how deep you fell for him. You knew you hurt him first, but you were willing to make it work. Somehow. Even if it wasn’t for long, you were willing to tell him everything. How naïve of you.  Now you just wish you never met him.

‘ _This is what happens when you try following your heart,’_ you thought to yourself before grabbing your handbag which has you ID, credit card, and phone. _‘You always end up getting hurt or hurting someone else.’_

_You look at your then boyfriend. He was watching tv, in the gamming house while you finish getting off the phone with someone in Korea. This time it was Longzhu calling you. Offering even a better perks than Samsung. Of course you had to think about it, you didn’t want to up and move. You sigh as you sat next to him._

_“Who was it this time?” he asks. You two had been dating for a little under three years now._

_“Longzhu,” you reply while lying in his lap. He instantly gets up from the couch, and startles you in the process._

_“Are you going to leave?”_

_“I don’t know. I don’t want to go to the same team as you or someone else. The whole point of this was to see how far we would get as 6. 2 of us are going back to school, and the rest are getting offers from other teams. I kind of want to see how far I would get on my own terms. LCK has a higher skill set, even if it’s for a year I think I would give me experience fighting against them when I come back,” you say. You were now sitting up, thinking carefully about everything._

_“You’re unbelievable,” he scoffs. “If you want to leave then leave.”_

_“So you’re not going to stop me?” you question him._

_“You never listen anyways,” he says with a bit of sass in his voice. You hated when you two fought. It was always over stupid things like this._

_“I always listen! It’s you who never listens. You act like this is the end. What in the actual fuck?” you shout. You were now standing defensively in front of him. “I love you, you asshole. But that doesn’t mean my life revolves around you.”_

_“You know what, after almost three years of dating I feel like I still barely know you. You don’t talk about your parents or your family. You don’t talk about anything past 17, or even your childhood. There’s too many secrets when I’m with you. Do you honestly love me or are you just comfortable being with me?”_

_“I-“_

_“Look me in the eyes and tell me you love me, and that I’m the one you want to spend your life with,” he says looking into your eyes. “Tell me, the reason you haven’t taken those offers is because you want to be with me and not because you’re scared.”_

_You couldn’t form words. He looks past you and nods once. He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. He grabs his phone from the table._

_“Wait…” you manage to say. You reach for his hand but he shakes it off._

_“I know you love me and I love you. But I also don’t want to be the reason why you’re hesitating. Your heart is already set on you wanting to go. So take the best offer and go. I’ll always cheer for you, but I don’t think I should be the one standing beside you,” he says before walking out. SKT calls you soon after, and without hesitation you take the offer following his advice._

 

You enter the club after arriving. It was a private club. By private, you mean, no reporters, no gossip, no pictures, and most importantly no one talks about what goes on inside. Club OD prides themselves on that. Getting in was practically next to impossible unless you know someone on the inside or had connections. Taemin told you about it one time when you asked about nice clubs to go to, and he called and said somethings to the guys in charge. After he was done, he tells you, you could show up at any time and they would let you in.

The reason why Club DO is set up like that is because a lot of high-profile people show up here. From idols to sons/daughters of a CEOs, high class families, or politicians, they made sure nothing made it to any social media. If you were to post about something, they could sue you due to the contract they make you sign when you are first allowed in. You use to come here a lot when you began living in Korea, but it has been a while since then. But the environment never changed.

You walk towards the balcony which overlooks dancefloor. Club DO was made of three parts. The main floor makes up the bar area, with two bars located on either side which overlooks the sunken dance floor. The dancefloor made up the entire floor with simple tables lining the wall for drinks to be placed on. Raised platforms littered the floor, another spot people could dance on, and of course, centered on the back wall was the DJ booth on a stage of its own. The last part of the club was the upper floors. The hotel rooms. The only time you stayed in one was because you were too drunk to tell the cab driver where you lived.  

You lean on the railing, adjusting to the familiar atmosphere once again. The loud bass of the music rings in your ears and the flashing lights danced against the wall. You could smell the mix of sweat, alcohol, and perfumes mixed in the air. It was intoxicating to you.

Not long after hitting the dance floor, a group of girls invite you to join them. You sway your hips to the music, not caring who was near or who was watching. You casually took breaks to go take shots or drinks. You were here for a good time, so every time one of them passed you a shot, you downed it without hesitation.

Almost two hours in, a mix of alcohol running through your system and dancing with all your might you hear one of the girls shriek. It startles you into awareness. You look at her, and she points at the top of the staircase which leads down to the sunken dancefloor. You look over and there he was, in all his glory.

Kang Daniel.

His white-button up shirt has an intricate dragon design on his left side. The right side of his shirt was half tucked into his jeans. His brown hair was styled as if he just got off the stage. His black rip jeans fit his long legs perfectly, and you hate how your heart skips a beat by just seeing.

“I wish we could take photos, but it’s because you can run into idols like this I love going here,” the girl who shrieks says.

“Pros and cons, Unnie. At least we can stare at him all we want,” says the youngest of the group. Your eyes were still on Daniel, since behind him were other members of Wanna One. Sungwoon, Jisung, and Minhyun were all here as well. But you didn’t care one bit since your eyes were still focusing on him. His eyes scan the crowd, looking right over you. He continues looking away, and as if it hits him he turns back. You quickly turn away, looking back at the girls. You look at the other girls who were swooning over him.

“Do you think he’d take one of us home?” one of the girls say and at this point you just want to leave.

“What I’d do to Minhyun if I get the chance,” growls one of them. This got uncomfortably awkward for you now.

“I have to get going,” you say with a small frown. The other girls look back at you before frowning.

“We had so much fun with you, cutie! If you see us here again, feel free to join us,” the oldest smiles as you. You bow respectfully at her.

“Thank you for letting me join,” you say before making your way off the dance floor. You look over your shoulder and see Daniel heading toward the dance floor while talking to Jisung. Maybe he thinks he saw wrong, and you could get out of here. Of course, out of all days you chose to go he would choose to go here as well.

 _‘No, hyung. I don’t want her around,’_ his words echo in your mind. You felt your heart tighten, and tears threatening to roll down your cheeks.

 _‘How stupid,’_ you think to yourself. _‘Was it just me who thought of him like that? What was I doing? What was I thinking?’_

You run your hands through your curls. You quickly take a seat down at one of the white leather barstools trying to pull up uber on your phone. You didn’t even know what to do next. If you go home, he could show up thinking he really saw you there. So going home wasn’t an option. If you go to the club room, you would have to put in the security code and explain to Coach Kkoma why you were there around midnight. That wasn’t an option. It’s not like you could call Baekhyun asking if you could spend the night, then you would really have to tell him everything. So now you were out of options. Or maybe you should just go home? You did tell Daniel not to show up anymore, and he hasn’t since then. Well, a lot of other things also happened since then as well.

“Here you go,” the bartender says while handing you a shot. You look up and he nods to the right.  You look over to see a good looking man holding up his glass to you. He was nothing compared to Daniel, but he wasn’t horrid looking either. He says goodbye to his friends before walking in your direction. He set his drink down beside you, and leans along the counter. The first thing you think: cocky.

“Why are you here all by yourself?” he asks. You hesitate. On one hand you want to ignore the stranger and politely walk away, but on the other you want to just want to spend the night anywhere. It didn’t even matter at this point.

“Does it matter if I came here with someone else? I’m alone aren’t I?” you reply. He raises an eyebrow, clearly not expecting that answer. It looks like you were both on the same page because you weren’t sure where that came from. You look down at your phone and see there was an Uber nearby if you were ready to leave. “But if you don’t mind me, I think I should be leaving soon.”

“What a coincidence, I’m leaving too,” he replies. He slings an arm around your waist, and now you swallow your own words. Maybe this was what you were referring to earlier. Maybe you just need to get over your one-sided crush even if it was with a total stranger. You lick your lips, and lean in towards him. You open your mouth slightly.

“Do you-,” you manage to get two words out before you feel a pair of hands on your shoulder pulling you away. Your body fits his perfectly, his arms wrapping around you possessively. You instantly know who it is, nothing can imitate the roughness of his hands from years of b-boying. Nothing can erase the way his body fits yours perfect, and the way he holds you from behind.

“Sorry, this girl is mine,” Daniel says to the stranger. The man looks between the two of you before giving you a quizzical look. You shake your head, trying to brush him off, but Daniel wasn’t having it. Instead he pulls you off the seat and tugs you behind him. The two of you go past the crowd of people and into the lobby where he impatiently pressed the elevator button multiple times.

“Let go,” you mumble. You know he hears you because he tilts his head a little in your direction, but doesn’t say anything. You struggle against his hold, now annoyed at the unwanted physical contact. First he gets offender you don’t want him around, and the he says he doesn’t want you around. Then he gets possessive over you, after you clearly hear him rejecting you. Finally he pulls you like some ragdoll through the club and heading to the connecting hotel. After a gruesome time of waiting for the doors to open, they finally do. He pulls you in, and closes the door pressing the button to a random floor. “Will you let go now?”

“No,” he replies. He turns over, never taking his hold off your wrist. He pushes your body against the elevator wall. You wince at the sudden impact of cool glass hitting your skin. You stare at him, and try pushing him off with your other arm. Usually, he budges when you apply force, knowing you couldn’t push him half a centimeter even if you tried. However, he doesn’t budge; he just grabs you other arm and pins both of them above your head.

“Kang Daniel, let go!” you shout. He finally meets your eyes, and neither of you are backing down. His lips hover slightly above yours and you can hear his heavy breathing now that you were free from the club’s pouncing music. He takes a half step towards you, pressing your bodies together, but never breaking your eye contact.

“You need to listen,” he says. He presses his forehead onto your neck, and slowly leans up into your ear. He whispers in the usual raspy voice he gets when he lowers his voice: “When I told Jisung-hyung I don’t want you around, you never heard the other part. I need you around. I need you. I need you more than you could ever know. Why don’t you understand that?”

With his free hand, he tilts your head up and crashes his lips onto your own. He kiss was urgent, and full of force, you barely had time to process what was happening before the elevator dings and he breaks it off. You were on his floor, and he just leads you off the elevator and towards a room.

“I don’t care! I’m going home,” you try tugging free. He opens the door with a card he had in his pocket, and effortlessly picks you up bridal style to prevent you from fighting him. He throws you on the bed, and hovers over you. You try pushing him up, and once again he holds your hands above your head for control of the situation. You were fighting against his grasp, you didn’t care what his explanation was. you inside. You stare at him, fire burning in your eyes. “For all I know you’re lying.”

“You never let me finish.” He looks down. Daniel places his free hand on your hip, and you freeze. He always makes your heart beat fast, but right now it felt as if it was going to explode. That one touch made you feel as electricity was going off in your body. He slowly raises his head to where your eyes meet. “What I said before is true. I don’t want you, I need you. Why don’t you understand that? When I’m with you everything feels right. I try finishing schedules early to make time for you. I head over every time I can. I watch your streams in the car because I love hearing you laugh and talk. I love it when you smile because of something I do. I want to hear you moan my name but I need you to lose control because of my touch. I want to leave traces on your body because I need to show people that you’re mine.”

You felt yourself flush and you try looking away. How could he say that to you with no shame? With no embarrassment? Everything makes sense now. The reason he got upset in the first place is your inability to pick up on these things. You caused this big misunderstanding for no reason, and now you were embarrassed. He lets go of your hands to grabs your chin. Without much effort he tilts your head back to read your face. 

You open your mouth to say something, anything, but Kang Daniel thinks differently. He crashes his lips on yours, and the feeling of this once was completely different from the one on the elevator.

He was everywhere.

One hand was in your hair, and the other snaking behind you waist, drawing you closer to him. His lips surround your passionately, his tongue gliding on the bottom of your lip before nipping at it gently. You open your mouth more to pants, and he takes it as an invitation to guide his tongue in.

Without any warning, he abandons your neck and attacks your neck. Kissing gently down your muscle making his way to your clavicle. Once there, he moves back to your lips. This time, you kiss him back the same way he kisses you.

He moves his hand from your hip to caress the outside of your thigh.

“If you don’t believe me. Stop me now,” he mumbles between your pants, never leaving your lips. But your mind was fuzzy. The way he kisses you, the way he touches you, it was better than any drug someone could offer you. “If you want me to stop, you need to tell me now. I won’t be able to control myself otherwise.”

Instead of answering with words, you reach for the necklace tucked under your top. You swore tonight was the last night you were going to wear it. You were going to take it off and with Daniel’s throw into the street to never be thought of. Now things were different. You look at Daniel who is looking at your hand pull out the necklace. He buries his face in your neck as a respond, chuckling lightly. He leans back up and stares into your eyes. He gently moves some of your hair out of the way, tracing your hairline down to your jaw.

Daniel moves slowly up your thigh, pushing your skirt that was already riding dangerously high, even higher.  He readjust himself to where one knee is in-between your legs. He grabs your thigh roughly, and bites you neck pulling it as he moves away. His hand pulls it up, and his fingers trace the strings of the underwear you had on. He unzips the skirt with his other hand, and pulls your skirt right off throwing it to another part of the room.

The way Daniel eyes were fixated on you reminds you of a wolf. He was carefully stalking your every move wondering what to do next in order to take you down. Should he play with you? Should he put you out of your misery?

You were at the mercy of Kang Daniel.

And you loved every millisecond of it.

He decides to toy with you even more, and moves his hands away from your bottom half, and slip them under your shirt on his way up. He pulls your shirt up, taking it off and throws it down wherever he threw your skirt. You weren’t even worried, because you were mesmerized by the way he moves. Daniel kisses in between your breast, down your navel. He skips over your womanhood, driving you completely crazy. He moves down your body.

He unties the back of your right heel, sensually kissing all the way up your inner calf to your upmost inner thigh. One again, he skips over your growing heat and proceeds to do the same things with your left heel. You groan in frustration, and you see Daniel smirk.

At this point, this could be classified at torture.

He kisses up the side of your hip, pulling the band on your underwear and releasing it. It slaps your skin, living a bit of a sting.

“Daniel,” you mewl out.

“Yes kitten?” he asks. You know what he’s trying to do. He wants you to ask for it.

“Please…” you say.

“Please what?” he teases you by lightly placing his fingers over the wet area of your underwear. He barely moves his finger before moving them away moving his mouth towards your hardening nipples. He take one in his mouth, sucking it between his teeth. His fingers moving slowly over you clothed wetness. It was driving you insane.

“Please, anything. Give me anything,” you beg, practically moaning it out.

“Only because you asked so nicely,” he mumbles while moving your panties to the side. He pushes two fingers in. The first time you guys did it, it was full of drunken lust. Now, Daniel was taking his precious time to move his fingers however he wanted. He curls his fingers inside, and you moan.

He sits back up. Without unbuttoning a single button, he slips his button up over his head and throws it to the side. You took a moment to admire every detail of his body. From his broad shoulder all the way to the v line on his body.

Daniel sees you ogling and smirks. You look away, embarrassed you got caught. He kisses your lips again. Slowly pulling them apart to fit his in between. You were caught in his trap. All you could think about was how he was making you feel in this moment. Like a fly caught in a spiders web, you were caught. Without realizing, was discarded somewhere onto the floor and you felt him poke at your entrance.

He leans back up, throwing one of your legs above his shoulder as he slowly enters you. You let out a small moan, and he pauses. He waits for you to adjust to his large size before he moves. He wraps his finger around your hip to keep you in place as he thrust powerfully into you. You couldn’t control your moans, and you were sure anyone who was walking by might be able to faintly hear them.

“You’re so beautiful,” he grunts as he quickens his pace.

“Daniel-I’m gonna-“ you manage to make some sort of sentence as your high is approaching. As if it was possible, Daniel begins to thrust deeper into you. You grab his forearm for support, and you both finish at the same time. It was different than the drunk night you two spent with one another, this was more personal. No lingering feelings or angst cloud either of your judgement. It was simple.

Because it was with Kang Daniel.

Daniel abandons his current position, to favor one closer to you. He lays his head on your chest. You run a hand through his hair now damp with sweat. Both of you are breathing heavily, and he props himself on one of his shoulder so he could look at you. He smiles lazily at you, and pulls you close to him. You snuggle in closer to him. The toll of being out all night finally sets in and you fell asleep while listening to his heart beat.


End file.
